For the fun of it
by madnone
Summary: Jonathan Teatime is awfully bored in Hell. That is, until a very strange person hauls him back onto the Disc...
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this story, except for Lyra. I don't want to make money out of this. This story is not to be taken seriously, it's just a sample of the author's insanity.**

**Have fun reading!**

******o*****

Nothing happened, yet again. Afterlife really was boring. It was nothing like the Hell he had imagined. For instance, instead of people bathing in bloodpits, some lost souls had to sit on a patch of strange white floor while a demon was showing them pictures of its family on holiday.

The late Jonathan Teatime was awfully bored. He felt he had been there for ages (that didn't really make any sense, since there was no Time in Hell), and stabbing souls just wasn't any fun. Didn't even earn him any money.

He hadn't been assigned a torment yet. He was currently in a « Waiting Room » (or so said the little silver plaque on the door). The only furniture was a dozen of chairs that didn't even creak ominously when you tried sitting on them. Plus, there was that silly music playing all the time, and those horrible potted plants were an outrage to anyone of the chlorophyllian conviction. Not to mention the... things he was compelled to share the room with.

The heap of blood and guts nearest to the Assassin tried to utter a sound. Between some of its gargling sounds, Teatime had ended up understanding that the creature was the result of the sudden reunion of a bodyguard, a way too fragile rope and a huge sacrificial altar that was to be replaced in Klatch.

Besides that inelegant concentration of gore and the recently deceased young man, the only other soul in the room was a tiny, scrawny old lady who was busy being terrified.

The trio had been respectively oozing, sitting and pacing (Teatime still wondered how come he had kept his boots, along with all his clothes) for quite a while now. One single demon had come in at some point, telling them that the bloodyguard puree (that had made the Assassin giggle for a few seconds) would be called next, and please have a good time while you wait it won't be long at all.

************o*****

« Meow. Meeow. Mraaoww. MEEEOOOOWWW!

- Alright, sweetie, I'm getting up. The neighbours' attic will never hold enough mice to top off one good ol' bit of fish fresh out of the Ankh, aye?

- Purr.

- Just as I thought. »

Lyra reluctantly made her way out of the queen sized bed she had « found » in a couple of victims' bedroom.

This might be the right moment to introduce young Lyra. As a matter of fact, she happened to be a member of the Assassins' Guild. Not to mention one of its best students ; oh, and she was monstrously intelligent, but that sharpness of mind came with raging madness, a far too dangerous interest in dark magic, sadism beyond recognition as well as some sort of manic love for her job... to top it off, she was impossibly beautiful.

Women like her are the reason why ginger-haired ladies are way too often mistaken as witches. Her white complexion was hardly altered by a few freckles on her cheek, and her small crimson mouth, which seemed to have been copied right off a porcelain doll, hardly ever smiled. Except when she was happy. Which meant that someone had just been cruelly inhumed to bits and you could reassemble the corpse with a teaspoon.

She could be described as petite and incredibly thin, yet she loathed being pitied for her size (1,60 meter high is perfectly suitable for a lady, mind you); most of her colleagues recognized her from a distance (hardly anyone was suicidal enough to come near her) with her flaming red hair. You could make out a few black streaks if you were close enough, but that would mean encountering a very well known fellow way too soon.

HELLO THERE.

Oh dear.

Anyway, she was currently nineteen or twenty, she didn't know herself for sure. She had been born in very strange circumstances and was abandoned a few minutes after coming out of her mother's womb, mostly because _her mother hadn't been there_. We'll come back to that later. All she remembered was that when she was three years old, a very good friend of hers (lovely chap, although a bit gloomy) took her to the great city of Ankh-Morpork, all the way to the Assassins' Guild and left her under its porch with a note after banging a bony fist against the gate.

Lady T'malia had let her in, read the parchment after thoroughly examining it (you can never, ever be sure, even when facing a cute 3 year old girl), then taken her to Dr Cruces, the late head of the Guild, whose successor was to be Lord Downey.

The couple of minutes Lyra had spent waiting outside the doctor's office were to stay engraved in her mind for the rest of her life.

********o******

Well, that's it for the first chapter I ever posted on fanfiction! :)

should I keep going?

Please r&r!


	2. Chapter 2

Jonathan Teatime watched the awkward crossing between a piranha and a terminally sick giant squirrel that called itself a demon, use an elderly rake to drag the remains of the bodyguard to its «caretaker».

He was done with twiddling his knife and had already cut two fingers off the old lady, who didn't even scream; probably in a state of shock, or something. He was thinking of a way out.

The door had this horrible habit of disappearing within the wall as soon as it was closed from the outside. It hardly let any sound through, except for the ever so silly music and a few wails of boredom.

This felt wrong. The situation was way out of control, and he wasn't used to that at all. His mind kept racing, twisting Hell's reality to find a glitch, a weak point, anything he could exploit to get the heck out of here.

While one part of his brain tried to work out means of escaping, the other suddenly started wondering where he would go next, and why it would really be fun to have another go at life.

The « where » was quite obvious; he'd go back to the Guild, obviously. Lord Downey would most probably be glad to have him back in, and this tiny incident with the Hogfather would soon be forgotten about. Right? He could be so convincing. With style and elegance, of course.

As for the why... well, he enjoyed his job so much. It was _fun_, challenging, well paying and never, ever stressful or inconvenient. Flexible schedules, too. If you wanted a day off, you just didn't turn up to accept a contract.

Fine, quite fine. Yet, apart from being an Assassin, was there anything else that could possibly be motivating enough to live for?

…

Oh dear. That _was_ problematic.

He had hardly ever managed to have any friends. None of them had lived long enough, for some odd reason. No one understood him; he just saw things differently from most people, which seemed to cause slight social problems; his knife was very useful in such cases.

No one, really?

What about that ugly rainy day, years ago, when he met that tiny girl, so small he thought she was a doll, then couldn't believe that she was real at all? She had willingly talked to him, smiled at him and said hello with a little bow while holding her little black lace dress. She had even given him her toy; it was a primitive articulate dummy, a few inches long, that could be twisted at will.

The girl had obviously tested the object's flexibility, considering that it had taken him a few minutes to untie it and make it look almost normal. This piece of wood was the only proof he had that this moment hadn't been a dream.

He had kept it safe ever since, the way a dragon would watch over its heap of treasure. It represented the only time in his life that someone actually been kind to him, not out of fear, not because there was that latent human need to survive. She had just seemed to find him interesting.

He had been so stunned, at the time, by this outworldly creature, that he hadn't even had the chance of asking her name. Good thing he got to hear it said a few times afterwards.

*********o********************

Thunder rolled over Ankh Morpork, shaking the Tower of Art. It was one of the ugliest summer days the city had seen in years. Rain didn't cool the air off, it just dampened it more and enhanced the Ankh river's ability of choking anyone coming too close using its sheer stench.

It added a bit of water to it though.

« Lady T'malia?

- Yes dear?

- How come are you so pretty yet so many people are afraid of you?

- See the rings around my fingers?

- Yes ma'am.

- It is believed that every single one of them is actually hollow and holds a fine load of poison. I could inhume you just by offering you a drink.

- That must come in very handy, m'lady. »

As Lyra smiled faintly (that already looked incredibly worrying; she was apparently born a sadistic killer), the Political Expediency teacher laughed at her pun. A wickedly bright child, that one. If she was to be given the best education, Lady T'malia intended to make sure that she'd have the little girl in the Scorpion House.

The senior Assassin couldn't put her finger on what was wrong with this being she was walking next to. Perhaps it was the way she looked at everything (especially sharp objects), or the fact that she acted like a young adult you could seriously discuss any matter with, including death, inhumations, proper ways to dismember someone and so forth. Her eyes were particularly disturbing.

It was utterly impossible to say what colour they were. Something kept moving within the irises; grey (which, to cats and wizards, was in fact octarine) seemed to prevail, yet it could be overcome by dark blue, purple, or a faint glimpse of red.

Lady T'malia couldn't bear looking into them for more than a second. They were simply terrifying and way too deep. The child seemed to read her mind at every eye contact, while trying to lure her into believing that she was just an average lonely and lost little girl.

As they entered the room together – at the same time, watching each other's every move, distrust almost palpable - , Lyra immediately noticed the boy.

He didn't seem to be much older than her; two years at the most. He seemed to be waiting for his appointment, while looking outside, through a partially barred window.

The teacher gestured her towards a chair; instead she walked towards the small, curly-haired human huddled at the other end of the room, fumbling within folds in her cloak. A wooden dummy emerged, and she proceeded to fiddle with it, bending it in rather chaotic (yet perfectly calculated, it seemed) ways. Lyra worked out a polite smile and searched herself for something to say while inspecting the back of his head.

« Hello there. Sorry to bother you, but I like your hair. It's all nice and shiny and curly. Are you bored?, she inquired.

- Hi, my name's Teatime. It's pronounced Teh-Ah-Time-Eh, please don't get it wrong. I wasn't bored, I was thinking of whether or not there's a Death for rats.

- That's an interesting name. I'll try to remember it. There is, indeed, a Death of rats. It's very cute, mind you. Cats keep it quite busy nowadays.

- How do you know that?

- I've talked to it, of course. While you, mister, are talking to a window. »

Lyra had injected just the right amount of cynicism and disapproval into her sentence; Teatime realized that he had never heard anyone so young talk to him like that. He instantly turned to face her. Time seemed to halt as their eyes met and her smile broadened.

Behind the flickers of blue and red, he saw the Disc, carried by four elephants standing on a turtle, which, he remembered without knowing how or why, was named Great A'Tuin. A tiny sun revolved around it as the ensemble seemed to swim through an ocean of distant stars and planets. He caught a glimpse of a galaxy in the distance; it all looked so _perfect_, so sensible, so logical. He could have watched the turtle move forever, with magic radiating from the Ramtops and concentrating around the Unseen University.

Lady T'malia broke the spell by calling Lyra and telling her to enter Dr Cruces' office. The girl was obviously disappointed; she glanced at Teatime, then at the old doll in her hands.

« Oh, I'm sorry we have to part already. It's been interesting, meeting you. Here, have my dummy; you can twist it in various directions, it's quite distracting. Should keep you from getting bored for a little bit. I hope to see you around! »

Her face was beaming as she laid the toy on Teatime's lap. The boy was paralyzed with awe; as soon as she left the room, he clutched it against his chest. It seemed real all right. So real he never wanted to let go of it.

**************o*********************

Indeed, he never did. It was still in a chest somewhere in his room at the Guild. He wondered, now that he was dead, whether they had already started emptying the place, clearing any trace of him they could find.

As for this girl, whom he heard was named Lyra... he hardly saw her again after that encounter. Once or twice, maybe, in some classes, yet she almost always managed to remain unnoticed; stealth must have been one of her specialties. Along with poison and sharp weapons. The few times he crossed her path, she always greeted him with one of those smiles of hers that made you think everything would be alright and she would always be there if you needed her. Yet she looked invariably tired, stressed, and most of all fragile. She was avoided by most over the years, her marks being far too high and her knack for exotic inhumations scaring pretty much everyone off.

Teatime almost regretted gradually forgetting about her. Maybe she would have known what to do, you know, when you were trapped in Hell and felt like taking a walk outside...

**************o***********************

Second chapter, whoot!

waiting for reviews :)


	3. Chapter 3

It was awfully cold. Snow coated Ankh Morpork; there was so much of it everywhere that the city looked almost clean.

Lyra shivered. She didn't know whether this would be a good idea or not. She wondered whether this would work itself out or kill her. Dark magic to a whole new level. Who said Assassins couldn't have a bit of general knowledge? Her colleagues didn't even seem to acknowledge the octarine mist gathering every night arount the Tower of Art; she could see it; she was pretty sure cats did as well. Sometimes her eyes had that colour, and she found it funny.

She knew, no, she _felt_ where the body had been left. It was somewhere in the vicinity, at the end of a small, dark street, left to rot away. That would take some time, what with the frost and all.

It had been a day and a half; she was running out of time. Slipping out of the senior Assassins' watch at the Guild and finding this abandoned attic so close to it hadn't been easy. Especially since she was supposed to get ready for promotion, or graduation, or whatever they called it.

She had almost rebuilt the whole top floor, over the last six months. No one had seen her and she had managed to keep up with her work. There even was a fireplace, for Azrael's sake. The hardest part was creating a bathroom out of nothing at all. She had never learnt a thing in masonry, yet the place seemed to stand on its own, with the occasional tiny flash of octarine. Any bypassing wizard would have seen his thaumic readings explode. Along with his head, as a matter of fact.

Lyra ran through the streets, normal humans still asleep just before the break of dawn. Getting up so early, how crazy had she gone? It'd better work. She slipped into a dark, narrow alley between two taverns.

« Oh dear, there you are. Quite a heavy bastard, aren't you. That's a nasty wound; shame for the pretty shirt. »

She couldn't get herself to look at the face. It would have hurt her deeply; good thing someone had already put it in an old battered bag.

Alright, she would have to drag the damn thing. All the way to the attic. It really was freezing, but at least no one was there in the street, and she didn't feel watched, which means she most probably wasn't.

Anyone out at this hour (ergo nobody at all) would have seen a pretty petite lass, half dragging, half carrying a black bag while trying to stick to the walls and remain as silent as possible. This was harder than inhuming a duke during his thirtieth birhday party with a teacup while wearing a bright red dress.

At least the Guild allowed light, close-to-body clothing, as long as it was black. She particularly enjoyed corsets, leather trousers or the occasional outrageously short skirt, and her usual leather thigh boots. With such outfits, she could avoid getting herself grabbed or caught into something, and also be even more attractive. Her sadism involved seducing her victims before inhuming them; some suicidal aristocrats even specifically asked for her to come and help them out of this world.

She finally made it to the trapdoor she'd crafted into the roof. Might have to see to those tiles though. Still, no time now, it was so important.

Lyra laid the bag on her bed and started unfolding its content, then covered it with a dozen blankets.

She had to admit that it was quite a silly way to die. Poor lad, it must have hurt horribly much.

After shaking bits of ice off and setting fire to a few logs in the hearth, she reached for a book on her bedside table. She had stolen the latter, but intended to give the grimoire back, really, in a few years. Its title read « How to Healle any Woonds causèd Magycally or not », and she had used one of her daggers to mark one precise page.

She proceeded to read; there was an blinding flash of white light, then octarine sparks began to flicker around the frozen wound, which gently closed in. After a minute or so, there was no trace of harm on the whole body. It was as if the man was merely asleep and a bit pale.

The young woman had tried to think of everything that could possibly be a technical problem. Finding a new scrying glass with the right properties had been an extremely tedious, not to mention expensive, process. If only that boy had left the previous one where it was... oh well, the thing seemed to fit...

Lyra concentrated. She was not ready for this, and alas, she would never be. The faster you do it, the sooner you'll know, she thought. Anyway, if I fail, I'll just invite Lady T'malia over for dinner.

She forced herself into looking at the face. It looked so peaceful, so sweet. Just as she remembered. As expected, she felt a shock of pain in her chest; her heart was not to be involved into this; everything else didn't matter for now. The world could end, she had to be there for this.

She gently pulled the jaws apart. No sign of decay. Good. Better odds.

She bent over the face, as if to deliver a kiss, then blew a thin cloud of golden smoke into the open mouth.

****************o***********************

Jonathan Teatime was getting slightly annoyed. This time, it was not because someone had mispronounced his name; he was frustrated.

Any newcomer would have found the old lady's organs neatly piled in a corner of the waiting room. No one had come in since the demon with the rake showed up, and he had run out of things to do.

Wait a minute.

Something was different.

There was no wind until now, he thought, and this air current is particularly peculiar.

A breeze had started blowing into his hair. It was warm, soothing, then cold as if it were loosing its grasp on him. He instinctively tried to hold on to this tiny air current.

It blew harder, stronger, more self confident as if it had gotten the hang of what it was doing.

A tornado embraced him.

Then there was an explosion of sunlight.


	4. Chapter 4

Lyra had used the Breath of Life before, mostly on small animals. She enjoyed bringing critters back from the Afterlife, so that her cat could have fun slaying them again.

She never remembered how and when she learnt that trick, which, unbeknownst to her, was in fact a gift hardly anyone had, and that could only be received at birth, during a very particular alignment of layers of universe combined with high concentrations of raw magic.

She had never tried it on a human being before; it seemed silly at the time, to want someone to live. What was the point? There were so many others to have fun with. She was used to considering people as toys or packs of meat you could use as piñatas, just because it was hilarious; you could paint walls with their blood then stick ribs between the bricks, and she was quite proud of some of her creations.

Yet this one... this one had something else; he seemed just as out of place as she was. She never felt at home anywhere in this world. You couldn't use a Home Sweet Home doormat when you had had four different families of neighbours moving out because you were scary, in a single week.

She thought that the man, just like her, wasn't mad at all; he made more sense than anyone she had ever met. That was why he had to live; she just wanted him to. There was no other reason, right? She simply wanted to see if she could revive a person, and she decided to experiment on this particular gentleman because he was _interesting_.

The problem with that Breath of Life thing, was that it sucked up a lot of energy to restore the patient's bodily functions. Lyra felt exhausted and fought hard to sit properly on the edge of her bed without collapsing, the way a fine lady Assassin would, or so she figured. Her sight was blurry and she felt a bit sick. Maybe she ought to have eaten a bit before trying to give that guy another go at life.

That didn't matter now; she only had to focus on him. He still wasn't giving any sign of life. The redhead was starting to worry, when he suddenly opened his eyes. Well, the one that wasn't made of glass, at least. He blinked while his pupil adjusted to the amount of light generated by dawn.

***********************o******************************

The first thing Teatime saw, when he got used to the sunlight flowing into the room through what seemed to be a window replacing a whole wall, was aesthetically perfect.

The woman seemed to glow. She had the face of an angel, peering at him expectantly, and the sun was turning her long, wavy hair into a heap of unreal fire.

She was sitting next to him, a delicate hallucination dressed in black, wearing a silk corset and a velvet skirt, on the edge of a quite enormous bed; he was lying under a heap of blankets, _breathing, feeling_ the soft fabric against his hands. Her eyes were tantalizing; he felt he was about to drown in their dark purplish blue depths, which sort of looked like the night sky.

He tried to move an arm, to reach for the wound the poker should have left; no trace. His shirt and coat were open, and where a gaping, bleeding hole should have been, he could only feel skin.

He felt heavy and weak, which was most unpleasant. This was one strange part of Hell, if he was still there.

*************o***************************

Lyra unleashed a frank, bright smile unto her face, something she hadn't done ever since the day she entered the Assassins' Guild.

It had worked; it had happened, he was alive again. She could hardly contain her joy. Her hands were shaking with excitement. So she could resurrect the dead, if provided with the right material. She didn't dare touching him or saying a word. She didn't realize how beautiful she was, the slowly rising sun creating a blazing aura around her hair. Any man in his right mind (that's to say neither Teatime nor a wizard) would have turned away and never admitted that such an apparition was even physically possible.

He cocked his head while looking at her, seemingly intrigued. Alive. Oh, how proud and happy and relieved she was.

She hadn't found any proper greeting yet, which was alright since he had started talking without her noticing. Lyra shook herself from her gaze.

« Oh, sorry, she said, I didn't realize you were already able to talk again. What did you just say?

- Are you a demon or something? Is this my appointment? Why can't I move properly? he asked.

- At the risk of disappointing you, I'm just a student Assassin. My name is Lyra, it's alright if you don't remember me, I don't mind people forgetting about me. Welcome back to life, Jonathan Teatime. You have to wait a bit until your body reacts properly again; you've been dead for almost two days, you know. »

She had pronounced his name right. Teh-Ah-Time-Eh, with a little melody to it; such a calming voice. He was alive, probably somewhere in Ankh Morpork.

He hadn't forgotten about her; he had a way too good memory for that, and she wasn't just the average female, although she seemed to want him to believe so. He tried sitting up, which almost worked, until his left arm decided to go on strike. Might as well ask her a few technical questions, since he had to _wait _yet again. She slipped another pillow under his head, so he could face her.

« Am I here because of you?

- Yes. I sort of blew something into your mouth and there you are, back on track and all.

- ...right. May I know why? »

Oops; what was she going to say next? Lyra couldn't come out with a credible reply. She had almost hoped he would just get up and walk away; that was quite an error, considering how inquisitive the bugger was.

« I just wanted you to live.

- That's not a proper reason, is it.

- I didn't want you to be dead; I like it when you're around. You make sense. I have fun watching you work; it's interesting and creative. You do things in a very logical way. Oh, and your mind is dark crimson. It's a pretty colour. »

And you're a helluva hot piece of arse, she added in her thoughts.

Well, this was the first time anyone told him he wasn't mad. She seemed to mean it. He finally managed to sit upright; his knife was still in his pocket. She hadn't gone through his things, which he found excellent manners.

Those eyes... Lyra didn't seem to have a knack for fitting into reality. Jonathan wasn't impressed; it was sheer interest in a new and unusual object that made him lean closer to her face. She was unsure of what to do next; he hadn't buttoned up his shirt yet and it was a very disorienting sight, what with her being tired and _damnit I have to do something that does not involve running away._

« I made some Hogswatch cookies, would you like some? There should also be some hot cocoa left, or tea, or... whatever », her voiced trailed off.

« That's what you'd expect gentle old ladies to say; are you afraid of me? he inquired, still way too close to her face.

- Why would I have revived you if you were scaring the living daylights out of me? Look, you have to eat something. Else hypogleky... hypoglamek... _thingie_ will get the best of you; plus your stomach needs something to work with, you know, start the engines up and all that mess humans have built in.

- You smell like flowers. »

She felt his breath on the left side of her neck and in her hair. He was obviously testing her. She got up and muttered something about being right-back-gonna-fetch-some-cups-and-make-yourself-comfy, then hurried towards a corner of the attic where a small candidate for kitchenhood stood.

While she tried her best to do something practical that didn't involve chopping anyone to pieces, Teatime pushed the blankets aside and proceeded to put his boots back on and straighten up his outfit, much to the damzel's relief, it seemed. He still didn't have much feeling in his lower limbs; he tried to stand, and would have dropped on the olden creaking wooden floor, had Lyra not _appeared _and caught him just in time.

*********************o**********************

She seemed so weak and delicate, yet she operated him gently towards a sagging armchair as if he weighed nothing. This was demeaning; Jonathan never was anything of a machist, but this didn't feel _right. _Petite ladies weren't supposed to do that.

He had to admit that the cookies and the cocoa were quite enjoyable; she kept watching him while he was cautiously sipping the warm liquid.

« Please stop watching me. It's awkward and rude.

- Sorry. I hope you'll understand; I was worried sick about you. I mean, what was Lord Downey _thinking_, when he accepted that contract from the Auditors? I had never thought he would be so _stupid. _All this for three million dollars. And those gold disks too, what's their use anyway? That doesn't make sense. These creatures, they think they have rights over everything just because they take care of the Multiverse's atoms. Sickeningly inelegant.

- Still, you have to admit it's a fine heap of money. Plus I fancied a challenge; I'm still thinking of inhuming Death and the Soul Cake Duck...

- Challenges, right. Would be quite funny, indeed; last year I went to Omnia, quite a messy place. While I was working on a high priest, some bloke with a turtle's head came in and started fussing about how murder was wrong or whatever. I later learnt that I had choked a god to oblivion with its own intestines, fancy that! As for the money, well... »

She looked at the floor and thought as hard as she could; she pictured details, the face on the coins, the colour, the noise they made while falling. After a few seconds there was a faint pop.

They were both gazing at a casket full of gold. Teatime went from one shock to another, but didn't really mind; there wasn't enough sanity in him for that. By the look of it, there was at least fifteen thousand dollars' worth in there.

« How did you do that? Even I wouldn't manage to make things pop out of thin air.

- I haven't got the faintest idea. When I really want something, I focus on it and picture it as precisely as possible in my mind, then I concentrate, and it just appears. That's how I made the cocoa. Still, I baked the cookies myself », she added proudly.


	5. Chapter 5

The Assassin left an hour later (when his legs finally carried him through that damned trapdoor in the roof after the seventh attempt), without ommitting to thank his host for her support. Lyra had said he could drop by whenever he wanted, providing that she was « at home and presentable ». Teatime wondered what that meant, since he figured that even in a rusty dwarfish armour she would still look stunning.

He had found it hard to analyze her the way he did other people. There seemed to be more than one person inside her; she couldn't possibly be able to be an excellent Assassin, make things pop out of thin air just by wishing they were there _and_ bring things back to life. At least one of these advantages was a fraud; he decided that the casket of gold was an illusion, that it had already been there, or had come out of a trapdoor within the floor, or something.

He could always persuade her to reveal the secret of her skill. Most people were suddenly very keen to obey him once they had met his eyes, or, if that wasn't enough or they were blind, his knife.

Yet she wasn't important. Lyra would be a new subject of thought at night, since he had gotten bored with the Soul Cake Duck, and more recently, the Tooth Fairy. Now a bright sun was shining upon the frozen city of Ankh-Morpork, and Teatime had lots of matters to tend to, the first one consisting in making sure that the right people knew that he wasn't dead anymore.

He walked through the rich neighbourhood, until he reached the huge dark building that hosted the Assassins' Guild. After knocking the right Code, he heard the heavy bolts clicking, letting him come back home.

He couldn't imagine himself anywhere else than within these tall walls. Teatime saw his job as one of the top reasons for living, and was eager to terminate the short and hardly enjoyable holiday he just had. He longed to feel the horror in his _clients_, to overcome any traps they might have set up just for him. The very thought of working again sent little chills of excitement down his spine.

He felt physically attracted to the prospect of killing.

The Guild's manor was far from being crowded at this time of year. Most members had returned to their families to enjoy beastly quantities of food and alcohol, which was to be expected since hardly anyone was planning to have people inhumed on Hogswatch. This solar festival seemed to gather loads of kindness. Illogical. Detestable.

Jonathan Teatime slipped, unseen, into Lord Downey's empty study. He sat on a fine cushioned chair in front of the Headmaster's bureau and waited.

*******************o***************************************

Lyra had watched him walk in the snow coated street, until he turned left towards the Guild, out of sight. Once he had disappeared, she literally jumped into her favourite pair of leather trousers and sighed with relief. Someone in a book had said that first impressions were very important, so she had tried her best to look like a distinguished lady for Teatime. Now that he was gone (and would probably forget about her again, she figured), she was glad she could wear more practical clothes again.

She watched the image of the casket flicker and disappear. She hadn't wished too hard for it to be there, so the object would only stay for a little while.

She proceeded to straighten up the covers on the bed; it was the first time that a man had been in it. Strangely, she didn't see him as an intruder, she rather hoped that he would pass by sometimes to say hello, some day, when he wasn't too busy. She enjoyed his company; he was the only person who didn't seem to be as safe with her as he would be at the edge of a crevace in the Ramtops.

Lyra cleaned the teacups, only to pour some more tea into them.

As she laid them gently on the little table, the air went chilly.

She rose and looked straight into the blue lights within the dark eye sockets.

« Hello, dear friend. How is my favourite Reaper of Souls doing?

- GOOD MORNING, CHILD. I PROMISED TO COME AND SEE YOU EVERY HOGSWATCH. HERE I AM.

- You know I'm always delighted to see you. Thank you so much for coming, you must be really busy nowadays. Business is going well, I expect?

- AS WELL AS EVER. YOU KNOW WHY I AM LATE THIS YEAR.

- Yes. Just like you know what I did to one of your clients. I am surprised that you didn't appear earlier to stop me; you could have, you know. Just cut through me with your sword and no more worries. Is Susan alright?

- SUSAN IS FINE. TRYING TO BLEND IN HER WAY. I COULD NOT HAVE STOPPED WHAT YOU DID. YOU DISRUPTED THE CONTINUUM, AND YOU KNOW I CANNOT CLAIM HIS SOUL AGAIN. DO YOU REALISE WHAT YOU DID AND WHAT IT IMPLIES?

- I want the guy to live, where's the harm in that? There are thousands of people dying everywhere on this crazed Disc, why are you after him anyway? Here, have some tea. Don't be so single-minded for once. Forget about him and go on with your job. I'm sure you're mad at me because he almost murdered your precious granddaughter. I know I'm nothing to you, just a burden, an aberration. I contradict most of your rules, and I shouldn't even exist, and you let me live because you know what would happen if you killed me.

- YOUR STATEMENTS ARE UNTRUE. I AM NOT WORRIED ABOUT SUSAN. I CANNOT FEEL WORRIED. TEATIME WILL NOT SEEK REVENGE ON HER, HE HAS... LOST ALL INTEREST IN HER. NOW HE'S WONDERING ABOUT YOU. HE WANTS TO KNOW WHAT YOU ARE.

- Oh, I see where this is going. Look, you already did so much for me. I mean, this place wouldn't be like that if it weren't for you. You didn't want our minds to be linked just to give me what I wish for, am I right?

- INDEED. YOU MUST NOT FORGET THAT YOU ARE ONLY PARTIALLY HUMAN. THE REST IS... QUANTUM. YOU SHOULD NOT BE. YOU ARE A CONTRADICTION.

- No need to remind me. You already told me that it's the quantum part that lets me see people's minds. I still have to train, in fact. They're all blurry unless I Touch them and do the right connections. Good thing I ain't a magical person, aye? » she giggled.

Death had to admit that she was right. If she were to learn how to channel and control magic, the Discworld would be doomed. A wizard was completely harmless, for wizards only used tiny scraps of their potentials, which they weren't even aware of; they mostly chose to hide behind huge, beer-filled bellies and pretend to be good illusionists. She understood how magic worked, but unless she had a grimoire, she couldn't cast any spells. They were way too frightened to dare lodge themselves into her mind, which was a relief to Death. The Breath of Life and the Touch were bad enough.

******************o****************************

Death was convinced that Lyra should have never been born and allowed to live. He had seen what had happened on that terrible night, when her mother died at the same time as she entered the world. The hard part was to decide which world it was...

He remembered the thunderstorm, the unsafe road. Lightning bolts were tearing through layers of reality, the way only electricity can.

During a thunderstorm, universes come dangerously close, yet they never intersect. The Auditors would have never permitted it.

In two of them, Lyra's parents were in a cart, racing through very treacherous mountains. In only one of them, the mother was pregnant and a baby was just about to come out of her womb.

The lady was in excruciating pain and the coachman was doing his best to make the horses run faster to reach the destination where they would all be safe. Her screams were muffled by the rolling thunder.

In both universes, at the very same sharp turn, the cart fell off the cliff. An exceptionally odd, octarine-coloured lightning bolt flew through both layers at the same time, and as both carts hit the ground, a small red haired baby girl was rammed screaming out of the safety of her mother's body, and the lightning bolt shot straight through her.

The little being should have been fried beyond recognition to a small heap of ashes.

Yet sometimes, the Creator awakes and remembers his sense of humor.

So, while both carts crashed into the ravine, a tiny body, still covered in plasma and screaming at the top of its lungs, appeared next to one of them. Unharmed. Defiantly alive.

Death was there, of course. He can be in many places at once, as long as Time may be stopped.

He picked up the noisy creature in His bony hands. It stopped wailing to look at Him. Calculating odds, analyzing Him with eyes that contained galaxies and sparks of octarine, the only remnants of its contact with the lightning bolt. The Reaper suspected a divine intervention; He was not to intervene, that wasn't His place.

He observed the baby for a while, and figured out that, compared to the human beings He had encountered, it was a female.

Before returning to His home, Death turned one last time towards the wreckage.

« FAREWELL, YSABELL. » He said.

Death had brought Lyra back to His mansion. Albert had greeted Him by saying « Oi, Master, you're not doing the same mistake twice are ye? That's not like you at all! » then he had stood paralyzed in front of the baby. She was a representation of impossibility. The probability for her to exist was not only zero, it was _negative_.

For the first years of her life, she lived hidden in a little farm, deep in the Ramtops, within a dark pine forest. She was raised by the owner, Steven, who happened to be a werewolf and didn't mind her weird knack for hunting and bringing dinner, which revealed itself as soon as she was able to walk. He was a bit of a crackpot too, as a hermit, and never came close to wondering about anything when dinner was much bigger than her.

********************************o*****************************************

Death knew Lyra wasn't fundamentally evil. From her point of view, she was a very reasonable person. You weren't evil unless you didn't have perfectly sensible reasons to act.

He finished His tea, and watched Lyra nibbling on one of her cinnamon cookies.

« You want me to stay away from Teatime, don't you, she muttered.

- IT WOULD BE QUITE ADVISABLE.

- Fine. I won't to anything to keep him close. Still, I won't be held responsible if _he_ decides to meet me again.

- OF COURSE.

- Again, I thank you. Sincerely. You're the most valuable friend I have. »

Not to mention the only one, she thought.

Death disappeared as suddenly as He had arrived. Lyra knew He was not to be kept; He had so many clients to tend to. She put a velvet cloak on and started to make her way towards the Guild. She couldn't wait to inhume anyone any longer.


	6. Chapter 6

Jonathan Teatime found it extremely hard not to laugh. Lord Downey had entered his study while reading a piece of paper, sat at his desk and started to shuffle through piles of documents, before he had finally noticed the young man's presence. His face went pale as he saw who was casually sitting in front of him, smiling as if the whole situation wasn't even close to being awkward.

The Guildmaster took a few seconds to regain composure.

« Well, Mister Teatime, you certainly can't get yourself to stay dead, can you?

- No, sir. There is so much left for me to do here. So many contracts I haven't yet undertaken; professionalism would have never allowed me to quit so brutally.

- Ye-eees, of course. You are lucky I am a slow-acting man. I haven't given orders yet regarding your personal effects, so everything in your apartments has remained the way you left it.

- Why thank you, sir. That's quite a relief, even though I would not have expected less of you. »

Teatime giggled. That maddened, childish and high pitched laugh that sent icy darts through your blood, because you knew that, once you had heard it, you were dangerously close to being dead, and very much likely to stay in that state. Downey hated it. He felt he had to say what was expected of him, just to end the torture of being watched by that horrible glass eye.

« Of course, you understand that your... return will cause a few complications for our archives. You are filed as having vanished without trace. I hope you understand that it will take a while for our staff to modify that status.

- I would appreciate it if you avoided changing that. It will be more _fun_, if people believe I'm dead. I kind of enjoy the idea. As long as you assure me that I'm a full graduate member of the Guild, I'll be glad to pursue my work. With elegance, obviously.

- Oh, about that... well, technically, you didn't fulfill the contract, so I'm theoretically not entitled to, um...

- You said you would let me graduate _if_ I agreed to undertake that mission. I did. Is this another bargain? Do we have to go over negociations about this?

- Mister Teatime, there is no need to dislodge your knife from its place. Yes, I noticed it, although you drew it very quickly. Now, you did not let me finish my sentence. You might want to read this before you cut my jugular vein in two. »

Teatime's grin had not faded; it was frozen though, with a nervous twitch or two, but he had kept _smiling_ all the time, with the tip of the poisoned blade inches away from Lord Downey's throat.

A small piece of paper emerged from the senior Assassin's pockets and landed on the table.

It appeared to be a letter; the writing was so small it was hardly readable, and its author was undoubtedly in a hurry.

As Teatime read it, it dawned on him that Lyra had planned much further ahead than he would have cared to believe...

_Dear and duly-respected Lord Downey,_

_I hope this letter finds you in fine condition, for the news it carries are terrible (in my humble opinion, not necessarily yours)._

_It is now six o'clock in the morning. Hardly more than an hour ago, I watched one of my much-valued colleagues, Jonathan Teatime, be brutally murdered. I would be very grateful if you could spread the news of his death and record it as soon as possible. Let no one look for the body, I am taking full responsibility of this task. Please do not try to find out his location, or mine._

_You will understand the reasons for such requests later. I hope you will care to leave all his belongings in place, until you get further explanations. _

_I am sure you will be very eager to have Mister Teatime graduate immediately, posthumously... or not. If I happen to hear that he has not been registered as a professional Assassin, I shall be quite sorry to have to slowly dismember you, while keeping you alive and serving your genitalia to your lovely dog with basil and tomatoes. In addition to that, my colleague is to receive two million dollars as a compensation for the dangers held by his previous mission, which he had not been warned about, which is a blatant violation of our internal rules._

_Thank you in advance for your cooperation. If one of your female students does not report at the Guild in more than two days, this shall mean that her experiment has failed and she will have put her own life to an end._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Happy Hogswatch,_

_L._

_PS: you will find a box of NON-POISONED cinnamon biscuits attached to this letter. You can always test them on a younger student, but I am an honest employee._

« Whoever wrote this letter is brilliant at cooking, _and_ wishes you much well, Mister Teatime, said Downey.

- It would seem so, sir. Sir?

- Yes?

- May I proceed to my apartments?

- One more question. If you happen to cross Miss Lyra's path, would you mind telling her to come and see me? The teachers and I have been a bit slow when it came to giving her an appointment for her final examination. She specifically asked for a difficult test. Don't expect to have one, since you are now, as a matter of fact, officially a full member of our Guild. Your last contract was enough for us to give you full marks.

- I shall be everlastingly grateful for that, sir; I will honor my condition as well as I can.

- Good. That's settled then. By the way, as for the author of this letter... you should thank her properly. Offer her a drink, or a book, whatever. Think of something.

_- She_, m'lord? How do you –

- My dear Mister Teatime, we both know who wrote this and saved you. I'm not stupid, although what she did for you, not to mention how she managed that, baffles me. It is not in her habits to care about someone. Now, you don't want to upset her. I took her threat very seriously. That should tell you something about her.

- Indeed. She's not the kind of girl who would squeak at a bunch of flowers.

- I am glad you got my point. Have a fine day.

- Good day to you, sir. »

When he was sure Teatime was far enough from him, Lord Downey heaved a sigh of relief. He put his hands on his desk and waited for them to stop trembling. Then he whistled at his dog, which rose and came to lay its head on his leg, as devotedly as ever.

As the Guildmaster stroke his pet's black fur, he wondered if the docile animal would have enjoyed meat with basil. And tomatoes.

****************o************************************************************

The brand-new Assassin went straight to his room, staying away from lights, as he had been taught. He had stopped caring about applying what he had learnt long ago, for most of it had become a set of reflexes over the years.

A small envelope was nailed to the door. Teatime sat on his bed and read the inhumation request regarding some rich old woman, whose nephew was worried about, for she was _very_ sick, and ending her sufferings would help greatly regarding inheritance matters. The assassination was to be performed at sundown, while she would most probably be tending to her garden, with no concern for her poor health. Seven thousand five hundred dollars for helping her weak heart stop beating madly by stabbing through it, without spilling any blood. Since there were no specifications regarding any relatives, Teatime would just have to play with whatever else would be left alive in the old lady's manor; hopefully she would at least _try_ to defend herself and have servants to paint the walls with.

Since he had to wait until dusk to have fun, he figured he might as well get Lyra to go see Lord Downey. She would be easy to locate at this time of day; she hardly ever had lunch and spent most of her free time at the Guild's library, ravenously absorbing knowledge rather than reading.

After quickly checking his black Assassin suit, Teatime made his way towards the second richest book mine in Ankh-Morpork.

**********************o*****************************************************

« What do you _mean, _that's all the books you have? »

The elderly librarian didn't dare to tell the furious little red-haired creature that she was in a library and was supposed to keep it down for some odd reason he didn't remember.

The old man was aware of a dagger poking against his skin, cutting through his shirt. If she pushed it through, his stomach would blow up, cause an internal hemorrhage and kill him slowly, not to mention very painfully.

« You... appear to have read everything we have, Miss... » he stammered.

« Oh, really? Then you tell me, mister, what exactly am I supposed to do now when there's no contract available? Get bored to death? » Lyra was now hissing in his ear, while embalming him with her smell of fresh lilies.

She suddenly turned, in a blur, to press her silver blade against Teatime's throat. Her eyes had vermillion irises.

« Well, hello again. Congratulations for your graduation, Mister Teatime, she said through gritted teeth. It's not very polite to sneak up behind people.

- It's Jonathan for you. Would you mind putting that off me? It's cold and I don't really like it. Lord Downey wants to see you in his office. Aren't you supposed to be reading? »

He didn't know why he had told her to be informal. It just came out of his mouth, and he wasn't used to not controlling his tongue.

She had changed into a man's apparel, given that said man was really skinny and appreciated tight blouses and vertiginous décolletés. No, she would defininitely not like flowers. A crystal bottle of arsenic was more likely to please her. A long braid fell nonchalantly on her right shoulder. It was a good idea _not_ to look where it went, if you wanted to keep eye contact. She had parted her hair on the left side of her skull, without altering the symmetry of her face. Her strangely beautiful porcelain-white face...

Still, Teatime had never seen her lose her temper, which was very unnerving, seeing as she was always so quiet. He untensed imperceptibly as her rage seemed to subside a bit.

She took a deep breath.

« I _would_ be reading if I hadn't finished off this library.

- That was bound to happen, after all these years. You might as well go and find another one. A bigger one.

- Aye, and where would that be?

- At the Unseen University, of course, he said on the tone of someone who was speaking to a terminally furious manatee.

- Hah! They would _never_ let me in. I'm not a wizard, as you might have noticed. To make matters worse, I'm technically female.

- Technically, but that wouldn't stop you from breaking into the place.

- Erm... you've got a point. Do you think they would let me borrow books? I like reading on a roof.

- Why not? Anyway, don't forget the bananas when you go there.

- Right. Um. Thanks... Jonathan. Sorry about the dagger. I still haven't fully recovered from... you know, this morning. Gets on my nerves. »

Teatime couldn't tell how long they had stood facing each other, shuffling their feet, carefully not exchanging glances. The librarian had fled somewhere between the bookshelves some time ago.

After a while, Lyra finally dared to look at something else than her boots, smiled (the world suddenly seemed to be brighter), gave her colleague a very manly handshake, whispered « See you around then » in his ear, and disappeared into a nearby corridor. Her perfume hung in the air for a few seconds. She had been so close to him that he felt like he was in a garden.

He wondered what the hell had just happened.

*************************o***********************************************

The technically female and mostly human redhead wasn't walking towards Lord Downey's study.

As soon as she found a window, she took a vertical shortcut to the Guild's rooftop.

She sat down and folded her legs, watching the snow covered city below.

Lyra felt strange; her breath was creating small clouds of vapor, yet she wasn't bothered by the temperature. Most of her body was unusually numb, as if she were in a state of shock.

While she was fidgeting with a monstrously small and sharp shuriken, she heard someone climbing on the tiles behind her.

« You wanted to see me, Lord Downey? she inquired.

- Yes, dear. I would have thought of a more comfortable place, in fact.

- Well, _I_ thought you would like to discuss my examination in your favorite smoking spot.

- A delicate thought from a delicate young lady. You know, there aren't many female members in our Guild. In addition to that, you're...

- … not very ladylike, no matter how hard I try, Lyra said with a hint of regret in her voice.

_- Excusez_-me, you two, but would you mind coming back inside for _le_ meeting, _je vous prie_? »

That was Madame les Deux-Epees. She was peering out of a small window, built within the roof.

Lyra and Downey looked at each other, shrugged and crawled into a wide room, where Lady T'malia, Mister Mericet and Mister Nivor were waiting.

The young woman faced the four teachers and the Guildmaster, listening carefully and wordlessly while they gave her information regarding the test that would grant her the status of full-fledged Assassin.

« Do you understand the instructions?

- I acknowledge and understand them.

- Do you agree to take this examination, with all the risks aforementioned?

- Happily so, Madame. »

Lyra was delighted. She had asked for the hardest thing they could think of, and she had obtained exactly what she wanted. None of them had a precise idea of what her specialty was, so they had just taken pretty much everything they knew and mixed it.

She felt for the small box of No 1 Powder in one of her pockets.

If she or any of her examiners survived, she would have to be granted with extra honors.


	7. Chapter 7

Lyra felt slightly disappointed.

It was the night of her examination, and it was raining buckets. Her clothes stuck to her body (that wasn't too unusual) and she felt cold and damp. After five minutes, her hair, although in a tight bun, has started to feel like an angry octopus (she had put one on her head as a hat on the beach once, for some reason). Melting snow and puddles of icy water had invaded the city. A full moon could be seen, occasionnally, between two heaps of clouds.

The whole situation should have contributed to the difficulty of the test, but had miserably failed. Slippery rooftops helped her increase her speed, and the mist generated by the rain hitting any surface made her even harder to spot for the teachers.

They knew she had turned up only because she had left a note on a chimney that was on the route she was supposed to take, and it said « _Don't worry, I'm here! Keep following the path we agreed on, thank you. Nil mortifi sine lucre, L. »_

She could see them; there was Lady T'Malia leaning over the sign of a tavern, trying to see something through the cascades of water falling from the sky. The woman was only a shadow slightly darker than the others, but she was recognizable, partly because shadows don't struggle for their corsets to stay in place every minute or so.

Mister Nivor was waiting in an abandoned attic about twenty meters away, comfortably seated in an armchair, facing the only window. Candelabres had been installed to light the place. She would have to jump over a street and slip into the room, unharmed.

Oh, and mind his traps, too.

As jolly as he would seem, the redhead could never get herself to come near him without checking the whole space in a radius of at least three meters around the man.

She was currently crouched on top of the Beggars' Guild. The examiners had apparently found it funny to make her jump up and down the roofs of every Guild in the city, and that wasn't even close to being the shortest path for a panoramic tour.

Whatever happens, do not rush it; they won't like it, it's not classy enough. She took a few seconds to study the space that was separating her from Mister Nivor.

_There_.

For some reason the owner of that inn (possibly a brothel; whoever laughed and squealed stupidly like that was definitely neither asleep nor lonely) had wanted, and managed, to keep torches alight around his or her establishment.

There was a tiny gleam of metal in the torchlight.

Right where her landing spot was supposed to be, the man had set a wolf trap. It seemed brand new and sharp enough to chop a leg off; on the tiles of a building next to the inn, a crossbow was held by Madame les Deux-Epees, who seemed ready to shoot at whatever she could see, which, at the moment, was really not much.

Lyra was aware of her presence; she had felt the lady before she saw her. The teacher's immobility was unnatural, and people usually didn't put statues on top of their houses, and something that was _too_ still was unnerving enough in Ankh-Morpork to raise suspicions.

The trick was to aim. If she could lodge the sharp little disc of steel in the right place, and then throw something onto the wolf trap to trigger it while leaping off the Guild to settle on top of another house without getting noticed, she could be sure to get more than an average mark.

She looked at the little spheres she had made; these were actually balls of No 1 Powder mixed with a catalyst from the Alchemists' Guild, which involved a lot of alcohol, coated with copper. Attached to them were little pieces of string, which made the devices blow up once ignited.

The few student Alchemists she had managed to meet had assured her that all you needed to do was set fire to the thing, throw it far away and run like hell.

She had tried one of them, and didn't plan to tell anyone that she had been responsible for last month's fourth explosion in the Street of Alchemists. The boys had advised her well; the fact that the biggest deflagration was caused by an experiment of hers (i.e. adding chili sauce to the spheres' composition) was to remain unknown. Even if it had sent pretty much everything flying a dozen of feet high, with cute blue flames.

She intended to keep these little marvels for the end of the night; hopefully there was enough material available to make pretty fireworks. She watched Madame les Deux-Epees carrying on with not moving, closed her left eye and threw the steel disc. Its speed made it follow something closer to a straight line than to a proper parabola, and it went _ting_ as it broke the string on its way to the mechanism within the teacher's crossbow.

The woman stared at her useless weapon in astonishment, then turned towards the empty spot from where it had emerged. She flinched as the wolf trap's jaws suddenly clapped around what seemed to be an old boot, or possibly a dead rat; it was hard to tell, with the rain viciously streaming everywhere.

What was more concerning, was the fact that the piece of junk had come from _behind_ her.

« Keep going Lyra, you're doing great! You ensured yourself extra points for disarming me from afar... but you'll have to be heard at some point. Melting snow can be _so_ treacherous. », she called, while trying to stop shaking.

There was no need for the lady to shout like that. Lyra was kneeling right over the window... and here was yet another trap. Anyone pushing the glass panes aside would trigger a small and complex mechanism which would eventually release a poisoned needle.

The girl took a deep breath and pulled out her longest blade. It was thin, carved out of a mountain troll's tooth, and blackened to avoid the tell-tale shine. One of dear Steven's gifts. She proceeded to gently touch the window with the dagger's tip.

The trap was designed to be extremely sensitive. As the needle shot forward into the rainy night, she heard Nivor say « Brilliant, miss, as always. Since you have already passed the stealth test – thanks for the sign, by the way – you don't need to hide while coming in. There's a towel and a nice hot cup of tea for you in there, chop chop! »

Lyra let herself slip into the room, but only after carefully checking the window frame qnd pretty much every place where you could hide a weapon. She politely accepted the soft and thick piece of tissue that was handed to her, once she had inspected it. No trace of powder or of any substance. No blade within the folds. No strange smell.

While she was doing her best to get less soaked (you couldn't possibly call that dry), Mister Mericet casually entered the room, through a door that was close to collapsing. He was followed by an old woman who was pushing a tray with quite an impressive number of tiny filled cups on it.

The teacher positioned himself next to the selection of liquids, then his elderly companion left.

« So, Lyra... would you care to tell me about the composition of one of these recipients' contents? he muttered, while preparing to scribble on a piece of paper.

- The first one from the right in the second row is a camomilla infusion, with about forty-two grams of phenol. It hasn't completely diluted yet, there are a few crystals left at the bottom, which means that the solution has been prepared in a hurry. It should be completely ready in, let's say, eight minutes or so. Then if drunk, it will cause severe internal burns, and when it enters the blood, puts the ingester to sleep and slows his or her pulse until death stops the process. The problem with it is that it tastes horrible, as far as I read, and camomilla will surely not stop it from being disgusting... so unless the drinker is an extremely slow-thinking person, I would not use it.

- A fairly complete answer. You didn't pick the easiest one », he said, without looking up. One of the porcelain mugs had not resisted the solution that had been poured into it and had started to dissolve, turning itself into a smelly brownish heap. « Now, could you pick a cup and drink it? »

Mericet could have sworn that she had chosen the beaker completely randomly. She had been right, he knew it, but at the first attempt? Without even _looking_ at the other drinks? He felt almost betrayed. Fifty-three different poisons. Preparing them had taken him all afternoon, and the girl had just passed his test in less than five minutes.

She left a bit later, after nonchalantly answering a few trick questions, increasing the teacher's frustration, and finally using half _his_ concoctions to produce a fine blend that was sure to taste like black tea and have you dead if one droplet entered your body.

That was the only time a teacher saw Lyra, until she reached her final destination, which was the second floor of a manor, not very far away from Lady Ramkin's refuge for swamp dragons.

The senior Assassins _knew_ she was near them the whole time, because she wanted them to. She had left little notes here and there, pinned to a wall or hidden under a tile, most of them reassuring them about her presence.

They felt as watched as she felt tired. They had kept her going for nearly five hours now, without a break. They hadn't missed out on traps, snipers, dangerous places, steep slopes... she was all the more happy because that meant that her examiners respected her; they had done everything they could to build up a really damn hard test.

Now there was one last thing to do. The proper inhumation. It was going to be a dummy, but she had to put all her skill into it.

She met the four teachers in a vast, empty living room. Lady T'malia stepped towards her, seemingly ill at ease.

_« _My dear, there seems to be a little change in our programme, she said, avoiding her student's gaze.

- What is it, m'lady?

- Well, you see, about the inhumation... well, it's up to you to cancel it, but...

- Tell me.

- It's going to be a real person. A man. He volunteered for it.

- He did _what_?

- Well, actually he paid a thousand dollars to make sure that you would be the one to put an end to his sufferings, or so he told us. He's waiting for you in the room behind this door behind you. He wants you to do it, tonight; he insisted on that. »

Dear me, another lunatic, Lyra thought. What's with all these people wanting to be killed by moonlight and stuff of that kind... must be another one of those silly religions.

She straightened up. « I will deal with him with great _pleasure_, Madam. Allow me to take my time for that one. », she replied, beaming.

Yes. I'll deal with him, nice and slowly, she thought. Then I'll start the fireworks.

She braced herself and opened the door carefully. The bedroom seemed comfortable; it was warm in there, thanks to a huge fireplace, and looked pleasant, although in a mess, as if someone had gotten very angry at the furniture and clawed everything they found. Provided that humans had claws. Which normally wasn't the case.

A massive man was standing in the middle of the room. He was facing a large window, contemplating the rain, and beyond it, the full moon.

He had shoulder-long, matted hair, and his shirt was torn in various places. He must have been clothed like a gentleman some hours ago. Muscles moved under the tanned skin. He had a tattoo on his right shoulder.

Lyra froze. She knew only one person in the world who would want to print that into his skin forever. It was a capital L, with a black rose around it and a crescent moon as a background. And it was shaking. This, she realized, was because the man was sobbing.

Of all the people on the Disc, here stood the one person that had loved her.

« S-Steven? » she stuttered.


	8. Chapter 8

« Come on down, miss. We'll get you a cup of cocoa and a cart home.

- Just leave me alone and I'll be fine.

- I'm sorry I can't do that. The Librarian doesn't like it when people are perched on top of the bookshelves.

- Oook.

- What, is there something wrong with the banana I gave him?

- Eeek!

- No, not the least... it's just that... well, you being so close to the books... not to mention now hanging upside down... it worries him, see. »

Ponder Stibbons felt uneasy. He wasn't accustomed to having outsiders in the University, in the Library of all places, and the current intruder being a wet, shaking and blood-covered Lyra, didn't help matters _at all_.

The Librarian had knuckled all the way up to Hex, looking for its nerdy caretaker. The ape had miraculously managed to tell him that someone strange and dripping had crashed through a window, shortly after a violent explosion that had shaken quite an imposing part of the city, so the student wizard had ended up in the grimoires' lair. He had almost lost his glasses upon the sight of the pretty young girl with the red hair.

She had cut a small hole in one of the great stained glass panes, and her seemingly long fall had left her landing on top of a shelf. Dressed entirely in black, her clothes had been partially clawed or bitten off. Blood was pouring out of large open wounds; she had bite marks, bruises and burns almost everywhere where skin was visible, which was almost too much for decency, yet she didn't seem to acknowledge her state. Her face was as white and sad as the full moon, and it seemed her attacker had decided to spare that part of her trembling body. The flickers of octarine all over her were most unnerving.

The problem was that neither Stibbons nor the Librarian knew what to do; waking up the staff was out of the question, since it was a bit later than 3AM, and the girl was definitely not ready to move. The books were getting nervous; the most lively ones were pulling at their chains, wriggling uneasily. Some of them were trying to get closer to the woman, apparently attracted by her; others were simply frightened, like cats during a thunderstorm.

Lyra had somehow attached a rope somewhere and was hanging from it, watching the wizard and the ape; she had found it funnier to do it upside down, since she wasn't sure of what she was doing anyway.

Everything had happened so quickly. She only had to Touch Steven for a few seconds to understand why he was crying: ever since she had left him, as a child, to become an Assassin, he failed to find a reason to live. She was, to him, a daughter, a friend, a marvel to cherish, and Death had stolen her from him, ripping his soul appart, leaving only an insane shadow of himself. He knew that if she had stayed, she would have become a monster just like him, yet he was not strong enough to let reason win over his tortured heart.

Preying on small animals had soon become impossible, for he was too depressed to hunt. Starvation had made him unstable; he couldn't control his transformations anymore, and he had ended up attacking people within small villages in the Ramtops, unable to contaminate anyone and make a friend. He couldn't stand himself anymore in the end, so he had begun a long journey across the mountains to Ankh-Morpork, to find his princess so that she could kill him. A thousand dollars was all he had managed to gather, through odd jobs that always ended badly, partly because he invariably turned into a wolf and ate someone at some point.

She had refused to access his request, of course; a parricide was out of the question, yet he was hopeless and in need of the only possible cure for his illness.

He had pushed Lyra aside just in time. His green eyes had turned golden, and she had watched him transform, painfully, uselessly trying to retain the beast within him, his scream of despair slowly becoming a wolf's howl. That was approximately the moment when things became messy, and the redhead didn't want to remember the fight. Steven had an incredible instinct of survival, so his reflexes told him to fight, and fight to kill. Lyra had become his prey, and she knew that she could either get eaten alive or inhume her adoptive father. She didn't feel any inclination towards a long agony, so she had decided to get on with it and deal with the shock later.

The struggle had been nasty, long and tedious. She had felt like an animal trying to resist a predator.

Once she had dealt the final blow, which had decapitated the werewolf, she proceeded to lay the charges of No 1 Powder in various places around the room. Her teachers had been kindly asked to get the hell out and run as far away as they could in five minutes.

Lyra had tried to wrap the corpse in blankets and wash the blood off the furniture; one of her ribs was broken, but she didn't have time to suffer from her injuries.

A half drunk bottle of sherry had served as a catalyst. A single tear had rolled down the girl's cheek as she had looked at the remains of the man who had loved her beyond all sense, then she had dropped a lit match on the floor and jumped out into the night.

She had almost believed that she would make it to the roof of the dragons' shelter. That was a bloody stupid idea, come to think of it, since the powder had ignited almost instantly and the explosion produced a giant blueish flame, along with a shockwave that sent her flying. The noise had stunned her, plucked her ears, and soon enough she didn't know where she was anymore. Somewhere in the sky, for sure, moving very quickly, then crashing through a window, into a place with a lot of books and a scared ape.

Maybe she ought to have died with Steven, that sounded reasonable enough. She had probably failed her examination by blowing the place up; hopefully no one in the building survived, which was probably the case, for there were no screams.

There was someone else in the Library. Lyra wasn't happy with that at all, for it was exactly the person she _really_ didn't want to meet at such a moment. Stibbons had run off somewhere, leaving only the Librarian to deal with the new intruder, which he did by hiding under a pile of papers.

Also, if these little fairies could just stop fluttering about inside her head, she would be really grateful for that. She proceeded to sit upright on top of the bookshelf and tried to prevent the dizziness from getting worse. Hardly anything in her body responded to any of her brain's commands, but after trying really hard, a few words finally came out.

« Oh no, not you, she muttered while clutching the sides of her skull.

- Good morning to you too. Lady T'Malia asked me to find you and get you back to the Guild so that you can get your badge and your pay for tonight.

- I don't want the money. They can keep it. I'll fetch the insignia later. Look, Teatime, just leave me here for a few hours and I'll turn up in the morning, okay? »

Of all the people from the Assassin's Guild, they _had_ to send him. This was either a bad joke or some sort of punishment for not having played by the rules.

The horror of what she had done was slowly creeping over her, overwhelming her. Lyra felt her heart beating wildly, and the blood loss made her light-headed. Teatime had come closer and was staring at her, seemingly puzzled and trying to figure out what to do next.

« You look a bit damaged. There are bits of you missing, you're surrounded by octarine sparks and you're oozing over the books; that's not very elegant, he said with a frown.

- Dear me, I failed to think about the furniture, what a shame. Can't you just go away and mind your own business?

- I'm afraid not. Now please get down from there and we'll both go back to the Guild.

- What if I like it here?

- Oook!

- Don't make me come up here. »

The truth was, she actually wanted to climb down and hug Mister Fluffy, which was a cute name she had found for the Librarian. From her blurry point of view, the ape resembled a big ball of orange fur, and she felt an increasing need to cuddle it, for some reason. She could definitely not think straight at the moment and felt too weak to move.

« Teatime, I don't think it would be a good idea for me to budge right now – Aaaww hello Mister Fluffy! Whozza biiiiiig balla fuzz? Whoizzz? Youwwaaaaaarrr! »

There we go, I've lost her, the glass-eyed Assassin thought.

The Librarian had knuckled his way up to her, possibly intending to carry her to lower altitudes. He had certainly not planned to get suddenly dragged closer, crushed against a female chest and have his head scratched. The whole thing was far from being unpleasant; it was just downright weird.

« Lyra, do leave this ape alone and stop being high, Jonathan said with a sigh.

- Nope! He's too cute! Besides, I need to hug something. You should try it, it's so soft and a bit squishy and it smells of bananas and peanuts and – hey! »

The ape, contrarily to the girl, had finally regained composure, wriggled out of her arms and gently slapped her back to her senses. This ended up in yet another free fall, but this time the landing area was a soft armchair, which became incredibly happy, for someone hadn't sat in it for over a hundred years; the Library had never been anything near a crowded place, and with the stray magic, some pieces of furniture had acquired a mind of their own.

Lyra seemed to have snapped out of it. She staggered to her feet and looked around in bewilderment.

« What... just... happened? she asked.

- You called the Librarian Mister Fluffy and started to cuddle him, which resulted in him beating you back to your senses.

- Oook.

- But it's okay, he's not mad at you. He seems to like you.

- How can you tell that?

- You're still alive... »

The bloke had a point. She lurched towards the door, as in a dream, hardly noticing that her left thigh was missing about a quarter of its usual flesh, or that a trail of blood was forming under her.

She caught a glimpse of Teatime walking towards her and gallantly offering an arm for her to rest on, which her dignity dictated to refuse.

Then the world vanished.


	9. Chapter 9

YOU ARE ALIVE.

Daylight. A warm, comfortable bed, in a dormitory. Smells of ointments, feel of bandages.

WAKE UP.

Lyra opened her eyes. Death was sitting on a wooden chair next to her. She felt numb.

« Where am I? she inquired.

THIS IS THE INFIRMARY OF THE ASSASSINS' GUILD. YOU WERE BROUGHT HERE BY TEATIME AFTER YOU FAINTED.

- Oh. Which way did he take?

THE ROOFS. YOU WERE ON HIS BACK.

- So you've been watching me all night.

NO. ONLY ONCE I HAD DONE MY JOB.

- Oh gods, Steven...

HE SAID HE WAS HAPPY YOU HELPED HIM. HE LOVED YOU ALL THE MORE FOR ACCEPTING TO KILL HIM. HE RECKONS YOU ARE AN EXCELLENT FIGHTER. HE WILL REST IN PEACE, THANKS TO YOU. HE LIKED THE FIREWORKS. I FOUND THEM INTERESTING TOO.

- He taught me most of what I know. The Guild only showed me how to add class to it, that's all. Did he say anything else before going?

YES. THAT TO HIM YOU ARE THE PERFECT WOMAN. A GODDESS.

- Is there anyone who can hear us now?

NO. YOU CAN LET IT OUT. »

At last, Lyra let herself cry. She allowed herself to feel the pain from her wounds and her broken rib, to fully grasp what she had done, even though it was out of mercy. She hated and dreaded herself for not being able to help her beloved werewolf in any other way, for looking blatantly stupid in front of Teatime, for letting things go totally out of control.

HE LEFT THIS MEDALLION. A FAREWELL GIFT.

She folded herself around the ruby into a foetal position and let her tears soak the pillow. She was shaking with her sobs and from stress relief. Unable to feel any compassion, the best that Death could do was to lay a bony hand on her shoulder before disappearing, leaving her clutching the gem, which was a crimson heart-shaped ruby laced by grey gold leaves. Lyra instinctively put it around her neck; the chain consisted in a short black silk ribbon.

Someone had put a white dressing gown on her, and she had been washed, her hair braided. She just hoped that a woman did it... that dealt yet another blow to her dignity, but she wasn't in a position to mind anyway, so she simply wept herself back to sleep.

« Lyra? Can you hear me? It's Jonathan. Snap out of it, you've been like that for three days now. »

A hand was gently shaking her. She turned to look at Teatime and tried to work up a smile. Why didn't he let her die? That was very unlike him. He usually didn't bother with humans; among the many things you could say about Teatime, one was that he was a selfish little bugger.

He was currently jiggling with a knife.

« So, are you getting up or what? If you don't, I'll be bored. We wouldn't want that now, would we? »

Indeed, we didn't. Teatime could not stay in one place for more than ten minutes without cutting through something.

Lyra stood up unsteadily; she was no longer in the infirmary. She had been moved into the bedroom she had at the Guild. It was supposed to be her home, but she had hardly slept in it ever since she had acquired the attic. The place was still slightly spinning and her wounds hurt under the bandages, but a clear thought had formed in her mind: clothes. Gotta get dressed, a little voice in her mind said, you can't stay in that nightgown forever. Maybe have a bath first.

While she was busy excavating an outfit from a large chest and half-hurrying, half-falling in the bathroom's general direction, Teatime searched himself for something appropriate to do.

He had been in many a woman's room, always for business reasons. Like any other young man, he had tried seeing a seamstress, but he might not have fully grasped the negociable affection system. The experiment had failed miserably, mostly because said seamstress had proceeded to touch him in weird places, without warning, not to mention permission. His was an obvious case of self defence, right? He had been _forced_ to get rid of her, but nicely; only a single stab through the cervical artery. She hadn't even suffered much, although she would have deserved more pain, due do her lack of respect, but he had been in a hurry back then.

He could hear Lyra washing herself, with an occasional grunt as she removed her bandages. It had been a close one for her; the teachers had not wanted to speak of what had happened to her, which meant that something went horribly wrong during her examination. Maybe she would agree to explain it all to him; he was impelled to admit that the redhead had a gift for piquing his curiosity. The reason why she had decided to resurrect him was still unclear and he was determined to sort this out. Surely that couldn't be for the sheer fun of it; only he could emit thoughts like that.

As he was pacing around the room, he eventually found himself near the bathroom's door. He had often been scolded at for being too inquisitive but he just _needed_ to sneak a peek through that keyhole...

No. You didn't do that to a friend, or so he had been told. It was bad manners if you didn't intend to inhume the person, and Teatime doubted that anyone would pay to have this girl dead. Why bother? Her attacker would be killed before even finishing to _read_ the contract.

She had been really, really nice to him, so he found it logical to like her. Her presence was enjoyable in every way. She wasn't indispensable – no one was – but in some way, just by looking at her, he had wanted to care, just a bit.

He had seen her being blown away by the explosion, of couse, since he had been watching her all along. The scrying glass she had bought for him – it was pitch black, lovely – had allowed him to see her face. It had been completely expressionless, which meant that she was in a state of shock at the time. Otherwise she would have at least given it a good yell and tried to catch herself up on a chimney with her whip. Her sight had been worrying for some reason, which, he reckoned, was certainly resulting from his brain adjusting to life again. Could take some time to get used to, life.

He heard tissue rustling, « Bugger that rib » was muttered, and he just got to the other end of the room in time before Lyra came back from her ablutions.

« There, now I can let people look at me without dying of shame », she said.

She had put on a red corset, to which she had pinned her Assassin badge, and black trousers; her hair was loose, hiding half her face. She brushed it aside; there was a collar with a ruby around her neck. Every inch of skin Teatime could see was pure white, except for the freckles.

« Something wrong? she asked.

- Shouldn't you be... you know, covered in scars, that sort of thing?

- Ah, yes, that. Well, see, I still have the spellbook I used to close that poker wound of yours. I think I'll keep it for a bit longer. Comes in handy. »

She walked past him to open the window, filling his nose with a smell of roses. She gazed at somewhere outside, seemingly thoughtful, her chin resting in her delicate hands. Teatime couldn't hold the question any longer.

« I was wondering... out of mere professional interest of course...

- You want to know what went on that night, she sighed.

- How did you know?

- You're a curious little devil. »

She came closer to him. Really close. So close he could see the black streaks in her hair and count them. There were eight of them.

Lyra reached up to his face and pushed a blonde lock from his forehead. It was the sweetest gesture he had ever seen. There was no trace of agressiveness in it. Then she placed her index a bit higher than his left eye, her middle finger on his temple, her thumb on his jaw, and looked him in the eye.

_Night. Rain. Tall man crying, client._

_Not client. Steven. Father in love, not in blood. Father friend missed him_

So that was how she would tell him. Telepathy.

_Love love love. So much. Pain. Father sick, wants me to_

_wants me to_

_no_

_no_

_NO_

The man had raised her for a few years, apparently. He wanted to die from her hand. Teatime saw him beg on his knees, through Lyra's eyes. He felt himself going down.

_Hold him tight feel him smell of forest of rabbit blood of everything home, childhood, memories, happy, will help him never leave him again sorry_

Jonathan watched/felt Lyra kneel and hug the person called Steven. He felt an increasing heartache as her arms gripped the huge man, then she touched the scarred face just like she was touching his, for a few seconds.

_Moonlight. Steven unstable. Can't control can't contaminate anymore can't feed_

There was a deep outburst of dread.

_Steven is my father._

_Steven is a werewolf. It's either him or me. He's going to kill me he's hungry oh gods_

_he doesn't know me anymore_

The man had unwillingly transformed into a massive beast. Its yellow eyes were glowing as it howled, then it lauched itself towards the girl.

_Father unstable_

_Father_

_no_

_I must fight_

_STEVEN_

_must live_

_LOVE ME_

_for _

_for _

_him..._

The rest was a blur. She had pretty much stopped thinking at that point, letting the survival instincts take over. Everything seemed to fast-forward from there on; she had fetched the head, closed the eyelids and wrapped the animal in a blanket, laid a kiss on the grey fur and blown up the place.

_Please don't make me repeat myself. Your mind, crimson. Pretty. Like having you around – _

The world came back as soon as Lyra removed her hand. She was looking down, so that her hair hid most of her face.

« That's all there is to know. Now if you'll excuse me, I really need to work. Do be a darling and close the door behind you. »

Thus she planted him there and walked out. Something about her said, if you try to follow me I'll have to murder you because I really need to kill someone and you happen to be close. So Teatime waited a bit, then danced happily down the corridors to his own apartments. She had let him know. She was a friend then. He couldn't choose between discovering a way to inhume the Oh God of Hangovers and finding a proper restaurant to take Lyra, as had been advised by Downey. The Guildmaster might be far from trustworthy, but he probably had some knowledge about how to deal with women.


	10. Chapter 10

Weeks had passed, the old rythm settling in. The only thing that remained from last Hogswatch, was memories. Lyra had remained carefully out of sight; the only signs of life she left were receipts, which meant that she was still working and, presumably, in good condition.

Jonathan Teatime had recovered amazingly well and enjoyed his job to the fullest. No one got in his way and lived, everything was pretty much back to normal.

Well, almost everything. Lyra had probably thought best to leave him alone for a while because she was afraid to be a burden. That was her style; she did what was needed of her and went straight back into the shadows, quick and efficient. Unfortunately, this time she had left traces.

He had constructed a perfect plan to inhume Bilious and even written it down somewhere, just in case. It had been a funny challenge, with a keg of liquor and a llama in it, too. He was ever so satisfied with his work, now upgrading his performances by terminating the victim's whole family _and_ set them together to form polygons. He had even managed to make pyramids he was very proud of... yet something always felt unfinished. There was something he felt he had to do; he knew what it was and simply couldn't resist postponing it.

Lord Downey's words were nagging him. Take her out some evening. Whether that was an order or an advice, it was sensible, simple, and bloody impossible. He could see the logical scheme behind all that, but just couldn't get himself to even send her a written invitation. He didn't know where to do that either. Some posh and despicable hole like le Foie Heureux? Somewhere simple and almost edible such as Georgio's pizza place? Or maybe he just ought to let Lyra choose?

This was a horribly complex problem to deal with. Whenever he tried to get over it and engage contact with that girl, he felt stupid or irrational and pulled the brakes, then he felt frustrated and went to the Shades to kill a man or two. If this went on, for the first time in its history, Ankh Morpork would stop being overcrowded and he's get a medal for ending the city's population issues.

Sometimes, on his way back to the Guild at night, he would glance up at the attic she owned. There were some evenings when she would, at some point, pass by a small side window, open it to let her cat in, then have a cup of tea; the whole process looked like some sort of ritual, always well calculated, in the same order, cat comes back with dead mouse, window opens, cat gets patted and let in, window closes, kettle smokes. He made sure she couldn't spot him, but most of the time there was no sign of her presence; her room seemed empty at the Guild. It was as if she didn't want him to see her.

.

***********o****************

.

One night though, five young people knocked at the Guild's gates, asking to meet her. Teatime was currently reading a book about necromancy in one of the manor's many sitting rooms and boudoirs, the one nearest to the main hall and the library. He was looking for some plausible way to revive somebody, in the hope that it would help him clarify his rebirth, in case it was needed again.

Carter ushered them into the room where he was, disturbing his quiet little universe. There were three men and two women, all dressed as well as they could afford.

One lady was obviously a seamstress, her round face surrounded by long brownish hair. She was wearing a greyish dress, with a corset that enhanced her already imposing arguments. The other one seemed much richer and had an ancient haughtiness to her; straight black hair, dead-white skin and fangs gave enough hints about her nature. Apparently the dead were never cold, considering the few square-centimeters of black leather covering her.

Among the men, he recognized the stance of a thief with a clean shirt, which meant that he considered this an important occasion. The other two... well, they had done their best, for alchemists. They had put on their least burnt outfits and their coats had almost complete sleeves. One of them had put a hat on, possibly to cover some acid-eaten skull.

They all seemed to know each other quite well, despite their various origins. They were all standing there, waiting, doing small talk, taking news of each other. Five heads jerked up as the wooden door opened and they all fell silent.

Lyra's head peered into the room, then she insinuated herself in. There were a couple of seconds where everything stood still. She had that effect on people when she took care of her looks; it took a bit of time for their minds to adjust to her, to accept that their eyes were not fooling them.

She had rouged her lips and put a bit more black around her eyes than usual. Most of her hair was tightened in a bun, but she lad let a few strands out, parting her bright red mane on the left, as always, for the sake of asymmetry. She had a slinky long dress, tied behind her neck, with an outrageous plunging neckline. Her right leg was intentionally uncovered, to reveal her favourite thigh-high boots. She would have been plainly indecent, had she not a small chain running across her chest to hold the tissue together.

She was, all in all, terminally beautiful, with that innocent look in her dark, star-filled blue eyes and that small ruby dangling from a black collar. There was nothing to alter. This was a sight a man would damn himself to all hells to see again.

During a split second, she crossed Teatime's stare. The book lay in his lap, dropped by his suddenly paralysed hands. As she smiled gently at him, he saw a shooting stat passing by.

The spell was broken by a general movement among the group. They clustered around her, seemingly happy. Lyra was hugged, kissed on the cheek by the seamstress, on the hands by the men.

Once she stopped laughing and asked what they were all doing here, they said that she hadn't come to the Mended Drum since Hogswatch, that they were missing her and wondering what had happened, after a while, so they had gotten tired of waiting and decided to come and get her.

« You know you need to go out a bit from time to time, Lyra, the seamstress said. What happened to you anyway? You had us worried.

- I'm sorry, Myriam, I really am. I just had a minute or two when Carter told me you guys were there. I'm probably not even suitable...

- Whatever girl, you've never looked better, said the thief, as he took her hand and spun her around. Now we're all here and you're gonna drink yourself to death tonight. Well, that would be, if booze ever did anything to you. How you stand a keg of whiskey and still walk straight, I wonder. We promised, remember?

- Indeed, remember the oath. We might have sworn it on a playground ages ago, but I'm sure everyone here was very serious about it. We stay friends, we meet at least every two weeks, so's we have each other, if that's the only thing that's left.

- I _know_, I was planning to meet you all again anyway, but I just had a lot of work lately. You know what? Tonight, it's all on me. Whatever you want, wherever we're going. I've spent too much time saving up and never wasting a penny. You guys armed? Lyra inquired.

- Yup, Alienor has her teeth, Ronnie's pinched a mallet somewhere, Shaun and Billie here have their exploding thingies (you might want to watch em closely) and I got all the love I can give. Where's your weapon? »

Lyra blushed. Apart from a small purse hanging from a fine steel belt, she didn't seem to be carrying a thing.

« It's... they're... well concealed. I'll just need the guys to look at the ceiling if I need to take em out.

- Good girl. Now, as the elder and initial nurse of the group, I declare this party started! said the vampire.

- Alright! But... just... wait a second. »

Lyra turned and advanced towards Teatime, who had miraculously managed to resume his reading. She stopped just before landing on him and put her hands on her hips, giving her colleague a hard time indeed. She snatched the book from his hands, snapped it close and dropped it on a nearby cocktail table.

« You're coming with us, she declared.

- Really? What makes you think that?

- Well, see, Jonathan, right now you have two options. You can either enjoy a fun night with a stiff drink and the six of us, plus, I'm sure someone is going to start a brawl at the Drum, _or_ I have a vampire here who, despite making me want to go lesbian on her, is _very_ hungry. »

He glanced at Alienor, who bared her fangs and hissed. He had the intuition that if Lyra unleashed her friend, she wouldn't just suck his blood out. This was an ancient Uberwaldean vampire, no black-ribboner, one of those creatures who turned you into neat little cubes of meat in a matter of minutes.

Lyra grabbed his wrist and pulled him up, triumphantly.

« Glad you accepted. Now grab a coat and let's get going. »

.

********o*****************************

.

On the way to the Mended Drum, Jonathan learnt that the rather unusual people he was walking with were friends since childhood. The vampire had been a nurse of some sort, who had decided not to bleed them dry. They stuck together like mussels on driftwood as kids, and had grown up in different directions. It had all started one afternoon on some playground, they were all there and Myriam had a ball but she didn't want to play alone, Alienor was sitting on a bench watching them and Lyra had started talking to her, the same way a rabbit suddenly engages conversation with a fox. The general weirdness, along with having nothing else to do, had linked them together. Hence they had stayed in touch, meeting occasionnally for a drink, preferably at the Drum or at Biers, carefully making sure not to invade each other's life.

Lyra was mainly asking questions about the others; she replied evasively to any inquiries. There seemed to be some line that was not to be crossed, by general agreement.

The Drum was packed, of course, with clients mostly of the scruffy male persuasion. Two trolls outside greeted the newcomers with « Hi Mam Myriam ». Lyra and her friends seemed to be well-known regulars here. As soon as the group stepped in, eyes turned, voices died away. The bartender eyeballed each of them, stopping at the vampire. His arm vanished under the wooden pane.

« Evening William, said Ronnie. Usual table please.

- Aight. Sorry, didn't recognize everyone straight away. Mafia doin' rounds, dontcherknow, gets me all jumpy. I'll get me boy Rufus here to get your orders in a minute. »

Privileged clients, thought Teatime. You don't get to have a waiter for you, not in here, unless they think you're important. Or a table saved up for you, for that matter.

Their spot was impossibly posh, considering the place. It consisted in an undead couch, some tattered armchairs and a clean slump of wood in a corner that overlooked the whole bar, while not letting too much of the guests be seen, for privacy's sake.

Lyra read a small piece of paper from her purse, looked around and put it back into her purse. Of course, she wouldn't completely stop working; it was her nature.

Jonathan was directed to a comfortable space on the old sofa, between Lyra and the seamstress's panoramic breasts. The men ended up seated on the armchairs and the vampire chose to levitate, for some reason. Everyone else in the tavern had resumed their conversation, having decided that the weird bunch in the corner was not too much of a threat at the moment.

Some sort of massive and interestingly perfumed creature reluctantly made his way towards their corner. Lyra flashed a condescending smile.

« Rufus dear, how have you been? Big and strong as ever I see. Do you wash yourself well behind the ears every night?

- Yes Ma'am. Ma'am is still pretty. Pretty red hair. Bin missin' Ma'am.

- Oh, you incredible Dom Juan you. Always knows how to talk to women. Anyway, I'll have a pint of suicider mixed with Klatchian Orakh topped with wow-wow sauce.

- Sugar on the edge?

- Naturally.

- Mefinks the gennelmen will want some Winkles beer, an' Missus Myriam's gunna have a Jimkin whiskey an' we got some beef's blood from this aftanoon for Ma'am's special friend. »

That was a surprisingly long sentence. It seemed to drain most of the energy from Rufus.

« Very good, Ruffie, said Lyra. It baffles me how your memory is so excellent yet you're as clever as a sick squid. Anyway, Jonathan, what're you having?

- What's there to have?

- Whatever you wish for. As long as there's alcohol in it, coz otherwise they're gonna think you're some sort of weirdo who doesn't like ladies. Don't ask, it's a special kind of logic.

- Alright, a glass of brandy will do.

- Oooh yes, that's a good idea! I'll have some too after the cocktail. Make it a bottle, Ruffie. Oh, and I'll have a reasonable mug of Klatchian coffee afterwards. Got some work to do, later. »

Teatime stared at her. She seemed to carry one load of money about her person, if she was going to pay for everything. Maybe that came from the real estate everyone said she had bought off some old, unfortunate clients...

« Are you sure you're gonna be able to walk straight after all that? he asked.

- You watch her, man, said the thief. She's outrun several officers from the Watch at many drinkin' contests. She stands everything, except troll drinks perhaps. Last time we came here that lil' crazy lass sitting daintily next to you drank down the whole stock of Amanita Liquor. An' you know how she reacted?

- Slept it off?

- Took a piss and asked for a cup of tea.

- Now Ronnie, you're exaggerating a bit here. I was a bit tipsy after the fourty-second glass of whiskey.

- Really? It didn't show.

- Seriously. I _asked_ Alienor to bite me. Twice.

- And I wouldn't touch her blood with a ten-foot pole, the vampire muttered. Not with what she puts in it. »

That was understandable. There was scorpion venom in Orakh, and Teatime wasn't sure about the exact contents of suicider. Mostly apples...

The drinks arrived within minutes and the conversation revolved around how every member of every government sucked and it was best to just blow the lot up, with much help from the two alchemists. The undead Assassin spent most of his time listening, slowly sipping a tasty Brandy indeed.

There was a cap over Lyra's glass; when she lifted it to poison herself, a bit of smoke, from the wow-wow sauce, came out and unleashed an eye-burning stench. One drop fell off and dug a small hole in the table. She was in an animated debate about explosives with the Alchemists, insisting that adding a few coffee beans into the basic mix would add a flavour to blowing things up.

Jonathan had to admit that he wasn't having a bad time. He sensed that he was among people who considered him as a friend, in a warm, comfortable spot, with a decent free drink. The Brandy wasn't too strong, he would hold the glass. He didn't dare to look away from the vampire for too long; she was trying to look harmless, delicately _sucking_ the blood out of her glass. Those teeth gave him the creeps, but he wasn't tempted by the blood; hence he deducted that he was quite definitely not that sort of undead. He laid a hand on a pocket to get the reassuring feel of his knife and got elbowed by Myriam. Right, not yet. Wait for a signal. Any signal. Don't start anything, you're too new here.

Lyra's liquid weapon didn't seem to have any visible effects on her, although after a while, there did seem to be more of her, as in she was more confident, filling her allocated space a bit more. It wasn't logically explainable. Some sort of aura was building up around her, it was as if she was radiating something. Had he known about sensuality, he would have sensed that men in quite a large radius were getting a bit raunchy, shooting glances at her and Myriam, graphic conversations drifting about how nice a woman on their laps would be right now. The tide eventually came back and hit the thief.

« Hey girls, still got no boyfriends? he inquired, with a voice suggesting that the beer was a bit too strong for his frail, twig-like body.

- Seamstresses can't afford to fall in love, you know that Ronnie. Alienor?

- We have... rules about that sort of thing, among vampires. We mostly draw pleasure from human blood. Besides, I wouldn't enjoy having a male standing in my way, telling me what to do. Our females don't get taken seriously, everyone thinks we're just interested in bathing in virgins' blood and acting crazy, not to mention undressed.

- Which is...

- Not true at all, as you can see. I have yet to take you to the opera, my friend. Lots of rich people and jewellery to pinch there. Give me my earring back.

- Sorry. How 'bout assassins? You guys also have some weird regulations about that? Is that why you brought your man here Lyra?

-What?

- So's we know he's trustworthy?

- Ronal Christopher McConker, you stop drinking _right now_. Jonathan is _not_ my... whatever. He's a friend, whom I trust, and a colleague who impresses me by the quality of his work. Very artful, especially with heads. Where's the harm in taking a friend along for a damn drink? Anyway, you should know I'll probably never get meself a proper man, because I _freak em all out_! Thanks for the reminder anyway. »

She sat back, arms folded – oh dear, and gulped down the rest of her cocktail. A band had settled somewhere and was playing the usual folk songs. Lyra sulked for a few seconds, before apparently spotting someone in the tavern and brightening up.

« Guys, I think now is a good time. » she said, while standing up and double-checking her little paper.

Her irises had turned reddish. She strode across the room, heads turning on her path, then stopped in front of a dodgy-looking man, who looked up at her in bewilderment.

« Marty Troubles from the Shades?

- Who's askin'?

- Enjoying your last drink?

- I won't go down without a fight, miss. Didn't know they had women assassins now. That's mean. Me 'n my lads don't take assassins kindly, yer know.

- Well then, entertain me. »

She took her hairpin off. It was, in fact, a beautifully crafted silver dagger. Expensive, sharpened. She leaned down to be level with his face, while putting a foot on his chair, right against his crotch. The effect of cleavage on the man was amazing; he was pretty much paralysed, staring blankly. Lyra whisped something in his ear, then in a flash, slit his throat. It was neat, quick, good work.

The tavern was silent. That sort of thing happened in there all the time, but usually it wasn't a small woman who performed the service. A dozen men rose, not too sure about this, but one glance at who appeared to be their late boss gave them the push they needed. Duty took over; if it was to be a girl, it would be easier because everyone knew girls were weak and you could do naughty things to them before killing em good.

Teatime watched the scene like a connoisseur enjoys a good wine. It was a show, and this was the first act, when you let tension rise up and people get nervous.

He smiled as Lyra sat on the corpse's lap; blood was slowly pouring out of its throat, but she didn't seem to mind the wetness. She put her uncovered leg upon the other and took two short sabres out of her boots, then rested her elbows on the table and looked at the men around her, with a grin on her face that could have spat venom.

It took about half a second for one of the thugs to launch himself forward. A glint of metal sent his head flying, then the rest of the men closed in on the girl. Teatime wondered whether he should join in the fun, but since everyone else was just having a good time watching the show and a leg landed on Myriam followed by a scream, he simply poured himself another glass. Lyra was pretty much attacking in every direction; for those whom she didn't stab or cut in pieces, she kicked them in the nadgers to deal with them later. She had sharpened her heels apparently, for the men in the second category had blood on their hands as they were clutching their forks. She had turned into some sort of killing machine and was generally quite funny to watch. She fought like a man from the Shades, without honour, using the blades as an extension to her body, an additional feature to the blows she dealt.

In a matter of minutes, her little dancing around with sabres had brutally killed seven men, dismembered one and castrated the last three. At last, standing in the center of a circle of corpses, partially covered in blood that wasn't hers, Lyra lowered her blades, slightly out of breath... and Jonathan was just in time against her back, breaking a new attacker's arm. The idiot had snuck up behind her from nowhere, trying to strangle her offguard, with an old piece of string.

Act two now, too much tension, everyone's blood boiled and the proper brawl started. It was mostly a matter of dodging blows from inexperienced people, hitting as hard as you could and surviving. Lyra's friends had joined in the fight and were, in fact, making their way towards the exit. Alienor drained a man's blood, all nine liters of it, smiled and left; she could stop herself and feel satiated, which was quite hard to achieve for a vampire.

The two assassins were fighting back to back, in a total mess, against everything they had learnt at the Guild. It felt _good _to randomly hit every moving thing nearby, to kill or be killed. It was _wrong_, it didn't pay, and who cared because it was _fun_. Lyra felt strange against him; small would probably describe the sensation, and for some reason, with that girl covering his back and butchering people as if they were on a contest, he felt unstoppable, more alive than ever. He was pretty sure that he had made a friend and was very happy about that.

« STOP IT! »

They both turned at the bartender's call.

« You've killed more than fifty people and the rest of em have run away! Just... just STOP! Please! » he screamed from under the bar.

Teatime looked around; the place was littered with corpses, unconscious or badly injured men. Lyra took a few unsteady steps towards the voice; her arms were crimson, her chest and face were spotted with red droplets, but her needing a bath was the least worrying detail. She had a _look_ on her face that her colleague thought only he could ever have, and to see it on someone else's face was weird. He had thought only him could enjoy his work so much; that girl looked like she just had an orgasm. His scrying glass showed him some strange reddish aura around her and he had to look elsewhere as she licked the blood off her knives. She threw a bag onto the counter and in a hoarse voice, informed the owner that there was a hundred dollars in them, which should cover any of the night's expenses. As the man opened the sack and his eyes widened, she burst out laughing.

She was standing on a _troll_. How she had put it down was a mystery; Jonathan recognised it as one of the bouncers from outside and decided that this woman was batshit crazy. According to his glass eye, there was a blurry, tall black shadow next to her, which looked very much like Death. He crossed her gaze and stared into a pit of blood. For some reason her irises had gone completely red and he had started laughing with her, probably at the same good joke; of course, this place was hilarious, this floor of bodies on which they were stepping on their way out was screamingly funny, the look on the faces of the people outside, especially of the few Watchmen that were there, everything was worth a laugh. They ran, just in case, then hid in the shadows of a dark empty alley. No one had bothered running after them, which gave them time to catch their breath, while trying to stop giggling stupidly. Lyra said something while putting her hair back into a bun.

« Didn't catch that.

- I said we should totally do this again.

- Are you mad?

- Stop asking that sort of question, I just managed to stop laughing. But yeah, we should do more brawls. Not in the same bar, of course.

- Next you're gonna say we should cross the shades at night.

- Don't tell me you read minds with that scrying glass of yours? Coz then I really swindled that guy before killing him.

- Glad I can't do that. Look, that was fun. It's just that we had enough fun for today. For the week, actually.

- Look at you, trying to be reasonable. How sweet. Anyway, how about you drop by at my place and I'll get you some cocoa? You don't have to, you can go straight back to the Guild if you feel more like it. »

She smiled at him, sweetly; she was herself again, the universe had gone back into her irises, with stars and everything. She looked like a doll, only with blood on it. She was still holding the sabres. You couldn't say no to a face like that; well you could and get acquainted with her hooded friend.

« Alright, let's go for that cocoa. »

Less than half an hour after that, Teatime was warming up with a tasty cup of cocoa with cinnamon in it, while his colleague had gone to her attic's bathroom (he couldn't be bothered to ask questions anymore) to wash the blood off. She came back in a blue dressing gown and they both stayed seated for a while, enjoying the cocoa, staring outside.

« Aren't you worried about people seeing you through those big windows?

- It's a special kind of glass. It's been sort of smoked so that only one side of it is transparent. It's a Dwarfish technique, very useful. I paid them extra so that people outside think it's a wall.

- Clever. By the way, I couldn't help noticing, what with your dress not covering much, that you had something tattooed on your left shoulder blade.

- Oh, that... well, remember when we were supposed to travel abroad for a few weeks, four years ago? You went to Quirm, I believe.

- Correct. It was an interesting journey. You went to Klatch, right?

- Aye, and it was awesome.

- Did you stay with assassins?

- If you consider the D'regs as such, then yes. Don't stare at me like that, I killed a few of them to survive, so they became friendly and made me a member of their tribe. We all had a great time. The circle with spikes represents the sun and the desert's scorching heat, and the panther walking in it basically means that they'll kill you in your sleep if they don't like your face. So there you are, knowing a D'reg that hasn't murdered you in more than three days, lucky bastard.

- Did that hurt?

- What, getting the tattoo? Of course. Everything is painful with the D'regs, but you get used to it, cause you have to. Just like you get used to people staring at you at the Guild, or clients, because they think you're not man enough to play with knives. You can't kill everyone, unfortunately. There isn't enough No1 Powder to blow em all up. »

Teatime nodded, finishing his cup. He wondered how late it was and why the situation felt a bit awkward.

« I should let you sleep, he said eventually.

- What's the – _oh ye gods it's 3 AM already_! I'm so sorry I took so much of your time! Aw man I couldn't be a good host for a dead rat.

- Don't worry, I had a great time. You had a good idea with taking me out and all. Besides it's nice... um... cocoa. »

And that was the stupidest sentence that ever came outta me, he thought.

She opened the trapdoor and adjusted the ladder. Nothing could have hinted that she had recently murdered twenty-seven people (he had a thirty-one head count for that night). Everything in her was so small. Or strangely cute. Or something.

He decided to set off before it got any weirder. He felt fine with her, but he definitely didn't want to crash on her couch after waking up in her bed. That just didn't sound right.

« Good night Lyra, see you around, he said on his way up.

- 'Night. Thanks for everything. »

He closed the hatch on a happy freckled face.


	11. Chapter 11

« No. »

That was exactly what you never said to the Patrician, in his guarded study, after an offer you couldn't possibly refuse. However, Vetinari didn't let a muscle of his face so much as twitch in response.

After about half an hour of telling them quietly what was expected of them, that was the reply. He had even tried to make the offer sound as lovely as possible, although it was like wanting to wrap up horse manure in pretty pink paper and sell it as treacle.

He proceeded to hold a small staring contest with the young woman, who was barely more than a girl, really. She stared back and he felt icicles fly through his head. She turned into a block of ice if she felt threatened, but he had been warned about that too.

Her colleague seemed ready to hear more though; maybe he could come in handy. He hadn't said a word apart from « Good morning, my Lord. » Their employer had presented them as raving mad, psychopaths, brutal murderers, cannibals on saturdays but that might have been a slight exaggeration. Just by looking at them, you couldn't guess any of those character traits, but Vetinari knew, by experience, that _it__was__always__the__quiet__ones_.

« Why such a swift refusal, miss? he calmly inquired.

- You could never afford it. »

If the young man hadn't been a few feet too far away, if there had been a table, he would have stamped her foot under it. The Patrician could read their body language easily, although they were performing decent attempts to stay stock still. Both seemed to be at the stage of discovering each other, establishing strategies only to wave them away a second later, yet most of all, it was hard to tell which one was watching over the other. The girl was undergoing an important amount of stress, which she put upon herself by doing her best to be flawless, while her coworker didn't seem to know whether he should look at her a bit more or just keep staring at something beside the tyrant's left ear.

« Allow me to correct you. The city couldn't afford your services. I, on the other hand, might allow myself a small extra expense for this year.

- My Lord, with all due respect, I won't even listen to you for less than a million.

- Good, I was about to offer you two.

- Each. »

He could have her hung just for being extremely cheeky. Now she was expensive _and_ impudent. The Patrician unclenched his fist under his desk, sighed and rose up to start pacing around the office, while noticing the damzel's hand grip a knife on her belt. That was the reaction of a cat on hostile territory, and he almost enjoyed seeing her poised to fail at attacking him, although he couldn't decide if he was the one who had made her so jumpy. The nerve of her reaction was pleasant. Finally, there was someone in this city who treated everyone as equals, from beggars to kings, with, perhaps – his gaze fell on the glass eye – one or two exceptions.

« Did I mention that it was two million dollars, with _no_ share for the Guild ? »

The Assassins exchanged glances, smiled knowingly. Now we were talking. The girl's hand went back to rest with the other one, on her crossed legs. She had tiny blades sticking out of her boots' stiletto heels. Vetinari had these kids in his favour and they would agree to anything, including what he was trying hard not to think of as a suicide mission. Downey had begged him to get the city rid of these two. Too dangerous, too rich already, pretty much impossible to control except by paying them more and giving them something to do. Too clever to be corrupted properly. Far too proud for the government to employ them, or were they? The Patrician felt like he had to prove himself worthy of them, while that should have been the other way round. The cherub-faced man's permanent grin was unnerving.

« So, assuming that we are willing to ride all the way to Überwald, what would you have us do there that would be worth so much? the woman asked.

- Are you aware of a war in Borogravia, Miss? the Patrician mused, looking through a window.

- You mean they're still at it or it's a new one?

- A gathering of certain size will take place in a castle near Bonk, during which such matters will be negotiated and wrong decisions will be made. I gather that the party will be located by a lake, a bit off the Schmaltzberg mines.

- Alright, said Teatime, you told us already, you have been invited there, won't attend due to health issues, a shame really, so you're sending us on your behalf, and oh, by the way, most people there will either not think quite the way they should, or be expendable.

- That sums up the situation, indeed.

- They won't let us in.

- You will be presented as one of my young clerks who couldn't bear not to take his gorgeous, recently-acquired wife along. »

Lyra decided that she had heard enough. If it meant to be used as some trophy wife and hang by the arm of a _classmate_, she would spit twice on the money. She got up and proceeded to march towards the door. As she lay her fingers on the handle, Vetinari's irritating, calm voice said:

« I don't believe we've parted properly, young Assassin. Mind your manners.

- If that's the job you want me to do, sir, then I'll redirect you towards the Seamstresses' Guild. They have far more competent ladies there, well-shaped, brilliant at looking happy and stupid, and if you pay extra, they'll even dance. Not sure if they will all play fetch.

- I have been informed that you had a decent understanding of fireworks. »

She froze. Of course, he would know, he had eyes and ears everywhere, but using that to bargain with her was just low... but then the man had been trained at the Assassin's Guild and that was a classical strategy.

Jonathan was watching her intently, a faint smile on his face, having fun as always. Let him go to the mountains, she thought, let a seamstress make a man out of him and if the cold doesn't finish him off, a werewolf will. But then she would have done all that for nothing and live alone again. She would _never_ admit that she was, actually, agreeing with Vetinari, that she wanted to go back to Überwald, if only for Steven's memory, if only to feel the forest around her once again. In the mountains, she felt saner than in this oversized, sick city. More than anything, she felt free. She had to go there if Teatime did, because he would never _understand_ the place by himself, because he had to live, she wanted him to, and for two million dollars, well, she could cope with the thought of spending time alone with that guy.

She turned around to face the two men.

« I made friends among the Alchemists, that is true. The explosion that occurred a few months ago might not have been my doing. It might have been an accident.

- Are you saying you're incompetent in loud deconstruction?

- Sir, it will take more than insults to convince me. Not all women take up silly challenges just to prove a point.

- Two million dollars each _and_ free invitations to Bonk's museum of chocolate if the targets don't leave traces on the carpets. You can eat your weight in samples for all I care. »

Both Assassins nodded. That was, finally, a fair deal. Their bank accounts would look much better, not that they ever needed that, but add the finest chocolate on the continent and the tastebuds took over willpower. Teatime grinned like a kid who just got a candy coupon, and said:

« When we're done, sir, you'll wonder if there ever _was_ a castle there. »

.

**************o***************************

.

As they crossed the palace gates and went past the guards, Teatime almost jumped up in surprise as his colleague started talking in what seemed to be angry Überwaldean. Arschgeige, Kackbratzen and Scheissfratz didn't sound like compliments for all he knew.

« You might want to relax a bit, he said.

- That... that_ Hurensohn_ is getting rid of us! We were a burden for Downey so he got the government to take care of the problem!

- Well then, they're in for a surprise, not to mention an expensive one. I'm sure Vetinari has plans for us.

- What do you mean?

- He intends to pay us, personally. It's strange for someone who wants us dead. Don't be so certain that he agrees with the Guildmaster. I say we just go there, perform the service, come back with a big smile, filled with chocolate, grab the money and see what happens.

- We'll need fast horses. The journey must be as short as possible, at most three days long if we can make it. I don't want to stay on the roads, not in Überwald. We'll die out there if we're too slow. Most of our attackers will not be human.

- There's time to think of everything. We're leaving in two days, remember?

- I'm angry but I'm not dumb, thank you very much.

- It has been proven that in situations such as this, a neck massage is usually quite helpful.

- Touch me now and I'll bite your ears off. Sorry. Or not. You have not idea how it is up there, it's not just unsafe to visit that country, it's suicide. It's still winter there, won't stop snowing before our midsummer. Überwald is the very place to get someone lost, and if a vampire doesn't suck you dry, you'll freeze to death.

- Unless you're from there.

- I left years ago! Also, you'll have to guide us through most of the Sto Plains.

- Why? Don't you know the way?

- I do but... oh, let's get this over with, I'm scared of cabbages. They're terrifying. They've got leaves that can hide stuff and there are so many of the damn things, I have to cross the fields with my eyes closed. You can laugh now.

- Look, how about we discuss technicalities over a decent dinner at le Foie Heureux? Tomorrow at eight is my best offer. Yes, it's been booked for ages. I'll be waiting outside. »

He vanished without waiting for her response. Lyra had just had enough of men for one day. The nerve they had! All of them. She had caught some guards staring at her bottom and had lost count of those who weren't looking at her in the eye, the Patrician had insulted her and bought her with sugar and what she liked to call « mother instinct », then this bloke came along and assumed that she would simply run for a dinner with him. It was only by sheer luck that she had decided to swear in Überwaldean, since hardly anyone in the vicinity would understand the words.

She loathed politics and knew that brutal honesty would get her decapitated one day. Right now, what she needed most was altitude. Sitting somewhere high up, watching the city, catching tiny glimpses of people's minds, would invariably soothe her. Yes, she would borrow a book at the Unseen University then climb the stairs, or the walls, all the way up to the top of the Tower of Art. She would spend the afternoon reading, cooling down, maybe she would also manage to justify the sudden peak in her heart rate when Jonathan offered to take her out, for you don't get butterflies in your stomach often, unless you had just eaten at Dibbler's Traditional Organic Gastronomy.

.

**************o**************************

.

Cabbages? _Cabbages?_ That couldn't possibly be a proper excuse. Maybe she was telling the truth. Teatime hadn't taken the time to know. It was a good idea to disappear after what he had blurted out. He was relieved to have finally found the courage to ask her out, but he might have failed to wait for her to accept. Or decline. Oh dear.

As he was strolling towards his taylor to order a winter coat in spring, he gradually realised what he had gotten himself into. First, he had invited a woman out and had no idea of what to do next. He just hoped that she was better than him at small talk, so that he could mute his way through the evening. If she became annoying, he would simply have to slash her throat, he could do it, anytime, and merely thinking that made him feel like a smoker trying to quit. But then maybe he wouldn't have to resort to such measures, maybe he would enjoy it all the way, perhaps it would be similar to the night at the Drum, only with less people to do the talking and brawling.

The second singularity in the otherwise smooth manifold that was his mind at the moment, was the thought of pretending to be married. As far as he knew, this involved a lot of sulking and fighting over wallpaper, well, generally getting over each other's nerves. Only then did he grasp the full horror of the situation: he would have to share a room with a girl.

Teatime had read all sorts of books about human relationships, and while the absence of logic in all that was utterly baffling, what he had gathered on the subject of wedlock sounded dreadfully unhygienic, not to mention pretty dumb and impractical. For two million dollars, it was best to consider this a complicated challenge. However, Lyra hardly ever reacted like a normal person. While another female would have flinched in the presence of men, she kept looking at them straight in the eye and telling them what she wanted. Her blunt honesty was refreshing, but it was regrettable that she just couldn't shut up when required. Vetinari seemed to share his opinion on that matter, but had she cracked up and called him a scum-faced weasel dropping, she would probably have been disposed of. The commission could have been worse, indeed, the Patrician could have chained him with one of those unbearable rich hags who spent their day bickering and complaining.

The redhead would, hopefully, behave properly and play her role as was expected of her, but he wouldn't hesitate to kick her if she snored.

.

**************o***************************************

.

LYRA.

This was a dream. She had spent almost all night alternatively packing up, tidying the attic, freaking out and multiple-checking her weapons, thus at some point she was bound to fall asleep.

THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Upon opening her eyes, she noticed the lack of colours and dimensions, recognised Death's house. There was a cup of tea on His desk, with some burnt scones, Albert's signature meal. She was slumped on a chair, possibly in the position in which she dozed off in Ankh-Morpork.

« Is this really your home, or are we in my head, or yours? » she asked.

She took a sip. That was klatchian peppermint tea, with leaves floating in it. The liquid gained some colour at her touch. Her sight finally lost its blurriness and she gazed into glowing empty eye sockets.

THAT INFORMATION IS IRRELEVANT. YOU MUST NOT RETURN TO UBERWALD.

« Did you bring me here to patronize me?

IF YOU GO THERE I MIGHT HAVE TO WIPE YOU OUT.

- Excuse me? You _might_?

IT IS NOT CERTAIN YET. THE ODDS, HOWEVER, ARE HIGH. YOUR ACT OF UTTER KINDNESS AND STUPIDITY HAS CAUSED PERTURBATIONS.

- Do we really have to bring that up again? My motivations have nothing to do with the rest of the universe, they were of completely human conviction. Besides, I find that he's doing pretty well for himself.

IF YOU GO TO THE MOUNTAINS, ONE WILL START A CHAIN OF EVENTS THAT WILL EVENTUALLY LEAD TO THE DOWNFALL OF MANY. »

She bucked up and bit into one of the small cakes. Someone, somewhere in this universe seemed to be pretty upset that a human being ceased to be mortal without being a zombie. She didn't want to think of what would happen if Teatime found out that Death wasn't a threat for him anymore, but it would certainly involve world domination at some point and that definitely didn't look pretty. She tried a different approach:

« What if I make sure that he thinks he can still die? Would that make things easier for you? I can do that and you know it, so I don't understand how that's a problem for you.

A PROPHECY HAS BEEN TRIGGERED BY YOUR FAULT. A GRAND MAJORITY OF FUTURES SHOW YOU FAILING AT SUCH A TASK.

- Prophecy? What does it say? Sounds like a bad one...

IT FORESEES THE WORLD'S DESTRUCTION AS WE KNOW IT, AS MANY FORETELLINGS DO. YOU ARE GROWING STRONGER. SOON YOU WILL HAVE TO MAKE A CHOICE.

- I'll choose to save the Discworld, of course. That's sensible. What would be the alternative?

THE OTHER OPTION WOULD BE TO LISTEN TO WHAT YOUR HUMAN SOUL WISHES FOR THE MOST.

- I don't want to be afraid anymore.

THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH CABBAGES. YOU WILL LOOK DEEPER WITHIN YOURSELF.

- You're going all cryptic again. Fear not for this world, my friend. Everyone will be just fine, Susan will live, love, laugh, and you will get to watch her be excellent at all that, for a long time still.

THAT WILL DEPEND ON YOU, IN A MATTER OF DAYS. »

Then she was violently thrust back into her body, an atom in the eye of the infinite multiverse.

If that had been a dream, it made no sense, or too much. Her back ached and she saw that it was some time past noon. Not going to Überwald was definitely out of the question, and she didn't want to find out what her so-called « heart » wanted so badly. Sometimes she hoped that her human part would vanish, taken over by what Death called quantum, so that she would merge with a star or something, and everything would be so much simpler.

Within the Reaper's aura, she had watched as possibilities unfolded, some futures showing beauty equal to the horror of others, blood on the snow strangely associated with things she didn't allow herself to ever hope for, their exquisiteness exceeding that of dreams. Literature indicated that the best you could do with a prophecy was to simply let it unfold and do something really heroic just before if was too late. That sounded alright, although she had some doubts about the last part.

She told Maurice, her cat friend, that she would be away for a while and he would need to find another temporary source of food. Seeing the scruffy ball of fur nod was purely coincidental.


End file.
